
•ik^^ 



0^14 







MAJOR JONATHAN W. GORDON. 



c^ 



V^i-^.. 



W. A. W^ 



A SOUVENIR 



Fourth Annual Convention, 



WARSAW, INDIANA 



July 9, 10, il, and 12, 1889 



By 



L. MAY WHEELER and MARY E. CARDWILL. 




RICHMOND, IND. : 

M. CULLATON & CO., BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS. 
1890. 






Entered according to Act of Congress in the year IHyo. by 

L. May Wheeler and Mary E. Cardwii.l, 

in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



7 



"Of all those arts in which the wise excel, 
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well." 

SHEFFIEI.I). 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Jonathan W. Gordon Frontispiece. 

Fountain Rarnble — Lake Side Park page 20 

Coates Kinney opposite " 40 

John Clark Ridpath " " 48 '^- 

Boat Landing — Lake Side Park " 76v^ 

Railroad Terrace — Lake Side Park ■" 140 ^' 

Mary Hartwell Catherwood opposite " 144 

Eagle Lake Hotel " " 153^ 

D. L, Paine " " 192 '^ 

Marie Louise Andrews " " 200 ' 

Sarah T. Bolton " " 217*^ 



JW^^ 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Historical Sketch — Mary E. Cardwill 9 

Lakeside — Z. May Wheeler 21 

Fourth Annual Meeting 24 

Call 24 

Reunion 25 

Extract — The Old Man and Jim — James Wliitnuith Riley 2fi 

A Vain Quest — J/;-.y. D. M. Jordan 27 

At Lake View Cemetery — Franklin E. Denton 28 

PROCEEDINGS. 

wednesd.av. 

President's Address — Bettj . S. Parker 31 

Annual Poem — The Shibboleth — Coates Kinney 40 

Advice to a Friend — IV. P. Xeedhaiii 44 

The Persistency of Ethnic Traits — John Clark Ridpath 47 

Dreams of Injin Crick — \\\ W. Pfriminer <)2 

Township Libraries — J. P. Dunn, Jr 64 

An Autumn Day — Franklin E. Denton 71 

The Two Edens — Mary Louise Chitwood 71 

Letters 73-74 

Coronado — D. L. Paine 74 

Resolution 1h 

Evening Session 77-88 

The Present Vogue in Fiction — Cyrus F. McNuti 78 

THURSDAY. 

Vox Clamantis — John Clark Ridpath «S) 

To Palmyra in the Desert — Theophilus Van Derm t)2 

Old Testament Poets — Maria Sears Brooks 93 

The Mother's Lament — William Alfred Hough 101 

The Place of the Didactic in Verse and Fiction — Mary E. Cardwill . 104 

A Midsummer Day with Nature — Mary A. Leavitt 114 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Poetry of the Anti-War Period of the West and South 

— Marie Louise Andrei^'s 117 

Csedmon — Alice Williams Brotherion 125 

Antiquity of American Dialects- — H. IV. Taylor 129 

The Idealist —Charles J. O' A/alley 141 

Annual Banquet 142 

Evening Session 144 

Lecture: Canada and The United States — John Geori^e Bourinot . . . 144 



Report of Committees 153 

Western Life and Scenery with Reference to Literature 

— Hannah E. Dai'is 155 

Mrs. McDuffy at Base Ball— v?//./ M. Nave 162 

The Last Message — Herman Rave 164 

Flotsam — Irene Boynton Haivley 165 

The Annual Public Entertainment 166 

Street Crossings ; or, Keeping to the Right — L. May Wheeler 166 

Excerpta 169 

Man an Evolution — T. B. Redding 178 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Sarah T. Bolton— Z. May Wheeler 187 

D. L. Paine —Mary E. Cardwill 189 

Stephen S. Harding— i^/. L. A 191 

*Benjamin Davenport House — Meride/h iVieholson 193 

Isaac Kinley — BenJ. S. Parker 194 

William Gallagher —M. E. C 196 

Marie Louise Andrews — M. E. C 199 

MEMORIALS. 

Jonathan W\ Gordon — Mary E. Cardiuill 203 

Myla Charles —L. M. W 308 

Mary Louise Chitwood — Benj. S. Parker 209 

Hettie Athon Morrison — W. P. Needham 211 

Ella Mathers Nave— Z. M. W 213 

'•'This paper should have appeared among the Memorials, but was misplaced by the 
printer, owing to misunderstanding of instructions. 



Western Association of Writers. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH, 



MARY E. CARDWILL. 




»HE fine phrase, esprit de corps, used so often by writers 

and speakers concerning those who are brought into close 

relationship by similar pursuits, suggests the noblest rea- 

'-> *^ ' son for organizations of all kinds, and their best results, 

whether _ they are Trades' Unions, Commercial Clubs, Political 

Leagues, or Literary Associations. 

Human nature is so constituted that men and women, by fra- 
ternity only. Ml its highest sense, by regarding the welfare of others 
as of equal value with their own, receive the benefits of which 
they, as individuals, stand most in need. 

A hermit may derive the greatest satisfaction, and perhaps 
also a certain development of mental and moral character, from the 
solitude of a hermitage. But such a condition of life long con- 
tinued is abnormal, and indicative of an unhealthy bias of mind. 
Men and women, as a rule, find it necessary to a well-rounded 
existence to meet and mingle, more or less frequently, with those 
around them. And perhaps the strongest craving of their social 
nature is for the companionship of those whose like interests create 
a common bond of sympathy. It is thus in accordance with a 
natural law that, in gatherings of the congenial, comraderie wields 
its most potent and elevating influence. 

The Western Association of Writers, now in the fourth year 
of its existence, is no longer an experiment. It is a decided suc- 
cess ; a success in the development of its idea — to stimulate its 



lO WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

members to strive for what is best and highest in the pursuance of 
their profession. This idea as a basis, first gave tangibihty to the 
project for such an Association. As one of its originators has said : 

"The point chiefly dwelt upon was the need of combined 
effort to cultivate and to elevate Western literature, and that this 
could be furthered by mutual acquaintance and mutual assistance 
in recognizing developed genius by kindly words and acts, and by 
encouraging literary fledglings." 

Emerson has made it impressive that men of mark are repre- 
sentative of the thoughts, feelings, and characteristics of hundreds 
of others, that they are the products of the human atmosphere sur- 
rounding them, and of a time ripe for their achievements. Impor- 
tant and successful undertakings, in the same way, represent in 
some measure the current of their time, and are the outgrowths of 
favoring circumstances and conditions. 

The Western Association of Writers owes its origin to the in- 
dependent workings of several minds, bringing the idea to the point 
of possible fruition at about the same time. 

In the summer of 1885, Mrs. M. L. Andrews, who had long 
cherished the thought of a writer's association, spoke of the matter 
to J. C. Ochiltree, then editor of the Indianapolis "Herald." Mr. 
Ochiltree's interest was finally awakened, and to further the pro- 
ject, he gave Mrs. Andrews a partial list of the "Herald's" con- 
tributors, many of whom were well known writers. He also pre- 
pared for her a prospectus of a literary organization. No further 
steps were then taken. 

During the winter of 1885-6 a literary correspondence was 
carried on between Dr. J. N. Matthews, Richard Lew. Dawson, 
and Dr. H. W. Taylor, all contributors to the "Herald." In the 
course of this correspondence, Dr. Matthews suggested 

" A gathering of the poets of the Wabash Valley in some con- 
venient city, or resort, for the purpose of enjoying whatever pleasure 
might result from a meeting so novel and unique." 

The suggestion met the approval of Mr. Dawson and Dr. 
Taylor, and the three gentlemen, by agreement, began to agitate 
the meeting through the columns of the "Herald," and to invite 
the views of others. Mr. Ochiltree, and later, his successors, B. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. H 

R. and M. R. Hyman, gave their willing cooperation, and to their 
friendly assistance is due much of the success of the project. Dr. 
Matthews says : 

"The first public letter attracted the approbation of many lead- 
ing writers in the West, and they began to express themselves 
upon the matter in various publications, and to urge its importance." 

Many views were advanced, and the original plan passed 
through a sort of ripening process, becoming greatly modified and 
changed. One thing was made manifest — the lime for such an 
association had come. On this point, Mr. Dawson, in an article 
published in the "Current," after the organization was completed, 
said : 

"Its urgency was aj)parent, for while there is always a desire 
for mutual acquaintance among authors, and many of them have 
discussed the practicability of an active organization, no previous 
effort had been put forth to bring the matter into practical shape." 

The discussion in the "Herald" naturally attracted the atten- 
tion of Mrs. Andrews. Finding the plan similar to her own, she 
immediately proposed to join forces, and offered her aid in the 
clerical work necessary in the arrangements for the convention. 
She stipulated, however, that prose writers should be included in 
the list of the invited. The preliminary work was largely assumed 
by Mr. Dawson and Mrs. Andrews, who finally issued the following 
"call," first published in the Chicago "Current," April 3, 1886: 

To THE Literary Profession : A call is hereby extended to all writers 
of verse and general literature, and especially to the writers of the Wabash 
valley and the adjacent States, to meet in convention in June, 188G, at the 
city of Terre Haute, or Indianapolis, Ind. 

The objects of this meeting are as follows : 

1. To form an association of the literary profession for mutual strength, 
profit, and acquaintance. 

2. To discuss methods of composition, and all topics pertaining to the 
advancement of literature in America. 

3. To produce and publish a representative volume of Western authors 
from the miscellaneous poems, stories, and sketches read during this conven- 
tion or festival. 

A full attendance of all writers is earnestly desired, in the hope that 
the success of this gathering may result in permanent good to .\merican 
literature and the welfare of its professional workers. 



12 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Please make known at once your purpose to attend, choice of location, 
and the character of your contributions. 

Address, R. L. Dawson, Terre Haute, Ind. 

iViRs. M. L. Andrews, Connersville, Ind. 

This "call" was afterwards sent; in the form of a circular, 
to all writers whose addresses could be procured. Prompt responses 
were received from more than a hundred writers, and a general 
preference was expressed for Indianapolis as a place of meeting. 

The First Convention assembled at Plymouth Church, Indian- 
apolis, June 30, 1886. The meeting was a remarkable success. 
About seventy-five persons from Indiana and adjoining States were 
present, and over a hundred contributions, of a generally good 
literary quality, were read. Of its first session, The Indianapolis 
"Journal" said: 

"Indiana has taken the lead in a number of things, but the 
most novel and fanciful as some supposed, was to be the Conven- 
tion of Western Authors to be held in this city. When these writers, 
however, did meet, the assemblage instead of being food for laughter, 
as some persons thought and even went so far as to say it would 
be, proved to be a very practical and business-Hke body." 

The movement, however, was an experiment, accompanied 
with much trepidation in the minds of its projectors. Literary 
clubs, and literary circles, in which a few congenial spirits have 
sought and found enjoyment and inspiration, have been, no doubt, 
a feature of literary life in all eras, among all peoples having a liter- 
ature. Yet a literary association on so liberal a scale had never 
before been attempted, at least so far as the records of chroniclers 
and historians reveal. 

The First Convention was open to all American writers, who 
were assured a welcome and an opportunity to show what they 
could do. It is not very strange, perhaps, that the meeting was 
numerically a success and full of enthusiasm. Much more strange 
was its success from a literary point of view. Some of the contri- 
butions naturally fell short of a high standard of merit. But the 
percentage of prose papers and poems of real excellence read, 
was large enough to fix the stamp of decided literary value upon the 
organization from its beginning, and to warrant high hopes for 
its future. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. I3 

The countenance and cooperation, moreover, of many well 
known writers — James Whitcomb Riley, Benjamin S. Parker, 
Margret Holmes Bates, Mary Hartwell Catherwood, Mrs. E. S. 
L. Thompson, Hon. Will. Cumback, Uan. L. Paine, A. H. Harry- 
man, Ben. D. House, W. P. Needham, and others — and the willing- 
ness of one of America's favorites, Maurice Thompson, to accept 
the office of President, gave evidence of the Association's essential 
dignity and seriousness of pur[)ose. 

The Convention continued in session two days, closuig with a 
fine public evening entertainment, in which Mr. Riley and other 
writers present took part. The musical part of the programme, 
in charge of Mrs. Rose Puty Bailey, represented the best musical 
talent of Indianapolis. 

The officers of the Association elected for the first year were : 

President — Maukick Thompson, Indianapolis. 

Vice-Presidents — Ci.akknck A. Buskirk, Judge C. F. Mc- 
NuTT, J. W. Gordon, Mrs. J. C. Aldrich, Will. Cump.ack, 
Miss Jknnie S. Judson, J. N. Matthews, and Clarence Ladd 
Davis. 

Secretary — Mrs. M. L. Andrews, Connersville. 

Treasurer — J. C. Ochiltree, Indianapolis. 

Executive Committee — R. L. Dawson, Mrs. L. May Wheeler, 
Mrs. Ida A. Harper, Mrs. Rose Patv Bailey, and James Whit- 
comb Riley. 

The Second Convention, held at the same place, October, 
1886, did not differ greatly from the first in its general character. 
More time, however, was given to discussions of "topics pertain- 
ing to literary art and advancement," and the productions, as a 
whole, were of a still better literary cpiality than those of the first 
convention. 

The most important event of the Second Convention was the 
completion of the organization by the adoption of a Constitution, 
the following first two articles of which, giving the name and 
designating the objects of the Association, indicate how broad and 
practical were its aims from its beginning : 



14 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Article I. — This Association shall be known as the American Associ- 
ation OF Writers. 

Article II. — The objects of this Association shall be: (1) to promote 
acquaintance and friendship among the literary fraternity, and impart en- 
couragement and enthusiasm to one another; (2) to discuss at the meet- 
ings all topics of literary art and improvement; (3) to hear literary pro- 
ductions written by its members, and to publish those which have been 
accepted by the Examining Committee, at such time, and in such form, as 
may be deemed advisable ; (4 ) to protect the interests of American writers 
against piratical publishers ; ( 5 ) to uphold the excellence and dignity of 
American literature, and to improve the welfare of its professional workers. 

The following extracts from President Thompson's address 
to the Third Convention, finely express the sentiment which in- 
spired the name first given to the Association, and make impressive 
one of its fundamental ideas — to encourage a literature distinctively 
American in the best and truest meaning of the word : 

"We have named ourselves," he said, "the Association of 
American Writers, not because we assume to be 'the' American 
writers, but simply to claim our nationality, and to give expression 
to the quality of our authorhood ; not in critical terms, or from 
a critical view, but as indicative of our aim, which is to do what- 
ever we can to make our literature sincerely and unequivocally 
American. * * * We Americans are a home-building, home- 
loving, clean people. Our aspirations are noble, and if we had 
the opportunity our literature would grandly commemorate our 
national characteristics ; but this opportunity cannot come to us 
as long as we permit English and French critics to shape our 
critical utterance and to direct the current of our literary vogues. 
* >1< * No writer is truly and sincerely in earnest who does not 
strive to use the fascinations of his genius for the noble purpose of 
art. * * * No people can be truly great without a great litera- 
ture, and no literature can be great that is based on humor. * * * 
We are the most intellectual people on the face of the earth, and 
should "easily make the letters of our great republic as influential 
and enduring as the religious and political freedom achieved by 
our virtue and our valor. ^ * * * I am an American, and be- 
lieve in my country. Whatever ennobles my country ennobles 
me, and knowing the influence of literature upon character, I 
note with impatience the inference the world is drawing (and 
legitimately ) from the pictures of American life set forth in our 
current literature. * * * It is willingness to be wholly and 
truly American that is our greatest need." 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 1 5 

The outgrowth of the First and Second Conventions was a sys- 
tematic preparation for the Third, held also at Plymouth Church, 
Indianapolis, June 29 and 30, 1S87. This Third Convention 
was practically the beginning of the Association, at least of its 
work as an organized body, the first strong shoot of the acorn 
from which it is hoped a "tall oak" may eventually grow. 

An excellent programme, confined largely to discussions of 
literary topics of general interest, interspersed with a few poems 
and essays, was prepared by the Secretary and the Executive 
Committee. The circumscribed number of contributions asked 
for naturally led to a smaller attendance than at either of the 
previous meetings. But the wisdom of a carefully pre-arranged 
order of proceedings was evidenced in the exceptionally good 
papers presented, and the practical results obtained. All present 
were invited to take part in the discussions, and the consequent 
interchange of ideas upon the same subjects exercised a mutually 
helpful and stimulating influence, and thus most effectually sub- 
served the chief purpose of the organization. The practical and 
literary value of the meeting may be in a measure indicated by a 
recapitulation of the subjects discussed, and the names of the writ- 
ers of the prose papers and poems : 

"The Relation of Literature to the Newspaper," paper by 
G. C. Matthews. Discussion led by Benj. S. Parker. 

"Address" of the President, Maurice Thompson, on "Dia- 
lect in Literature," followed by discussion. 

"International Copyright," paper by W. DeWitt Wallace. Dis- 
cussion led by W. D. Foulke. 

"The Best Methods of Preserving Local History," i)aper by 
John Clark Ridpath. A poem on the same subject, by W. H. 
Venable, was read by Benj. S. Parker. 

"The Duties of Writers with Respect to Patriotism," paper by 
Hon. Will Cumback, followed by one on the same subject by 
Clarence Ladd Davis. 

" Character Painting in Literature," paper by Margret Holmes 
Bates. Discussion led by Mrs. E. S. L. Thompson. 

"Models of English Prose and Verse," paper by Mary E. 
Cardwill. 



l6 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

" The Study of Contemporary Literature in Schools and Col- 
leges," paper by Ida A. Harper. 

"The Fool in Literature," paper by Eleanor Stackhouse. 
Discussion led by Richard Lew. Dawson. 

" Libraries and Reading Rooms — How shall they be sustained 
and made useful to writers?" paper by W. De. Hooper, followed by 
discussion. 

" Elizabeth Conwell Smith Willson and Byron Forceythe Will- 
son," sketch by Mrs. M. L. Andrews. 

" Picturesque California in the South West," essay by Rev. 
R. T. Brewington. 

"The Drama of Poetry," sketch by L. May Wheeler. 

"Grappo," a humorous sketch, by W. D. Foulke. 

Herman Rave, Mary A. Leavitt, Mrs. D. M. Jordan, Evaleen 
Stein, Dr. Hubbard M. Smith, W. W. Pfrimmer, Clarence Ladd 
Davis, Clarence Pierson, Mamie S. Paden, W. P. Needham, Dr. H. 
W. Taylor, J. C. Ochiltree, Will. H. Hayne, and Clarence Buskirk 
contributed the poetry read at the various day sessions and at the 
public evening entertainment. The programme for the public 
entertainment included also recitations by Prof. George Bass, 
Prof. Hattie A. Prunk, and Lucia Julian Martin, elocutionists, of 
Indianapolis, and musical selections by Miss Anna Abromet, Mr. 
Walter Spangler, and Mr. Will. Dagget. 

A feature of the meeting which calls for special mention was 
an address by Judge C. F. McNutt, followed by poems and " Res- 
olutions" in memory of Major Jonathan W. Gordon, whose death 
a few weeks before had deprived the Association of one of its most 
enthusiastic and universally beloved members. To Major Gordon 
belongs the honor of being the first person to respond to the " call " 
to the First Convention, and his interest in the Association remained 
unabated until his death. He had accepted a place on the pro- 
gramme to lead the discussion of the paper by Mary E. Cardwill, 
for which he had begun to make preparation. 

Judge McNutt, in his fine eulogy, said: 

" Major Gordon lived with all generations of the human race. 
He held converse with all great men of the past — poets, philoso- 
phers, and scientists. His forensic triumphs are widely known. 
His fine discriminations and cogent reasonings were enlivened with 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. I 7 

a gorgeous imagination. * * * Mr. Gordon was also a great 
literary man. '1 oward the close of his life he had been engaged 
upon a work of fiction, which, if complete, would have rendered 
him immortal, -i' * * His essays, criticisms, and especially 
his treatises on Shakespeare, are models of elegance, purity of dic- 
tion, and solid thought." 

At the close of Judge McNutt's address, Mr. Benjamin S. 
Parker presented a series of "Resolutions," which were adopted 
by the Convention as expressive of the loss sustained by the Asso- 
ciation in the death of Major Gordon. Three of the resolutions 
may be most fitly inserted here : 

Resolved, That in the death of our distinguished friend and fellow 
citizen, Major Jonathan W. Gordon, the country has lost a true patriot, 
society one of its most brilliant ornaments, and learning and literature a 
most devoted and enthusiastic champion. 

Resolved, That this Association, in view of his broad generosity of 
character, his admiration for the true and beautiful in literature and art, 
and his earnest interest, not only in the success of the Association, but also 
of its individual members, experiences a deep sense of bereavement in his 

loss. 

Resolved, That the members of the Association will ever cherish the 
genius, the talent, and the many excellent qualities of mind and heart, 
which were the characteristics of Major Gordon, and while life lasts, revere 
his memory and honor his name. 

Two elegiac poems on Major Gordon, written by Hon. S. S. 
Harding, were read by Mrs. D. M. Jordan. 

It is with peculiar pleasure that this extended reference to Major 
Gordon is given, and that his beautiful last poem and fine portrait, 
through the courtesy of Mrs. Gordon, are made a part of the con- 
tents of this souvenir volume. 

At the Third Convention, the name of the Association was 
changed to that which it now bears — The Western Association 
OF Writers. Opposition was made to the new name as implying 
a narrower aim, but the majority were in favor of adopting it as 
more distinctive, and less liable to misinterpretation. 

The following officers were elected for the ensuing year : 

President — Maurice Thompson. 

Vice Presidents — -Dr. J. N. Matthews, Dr. H. M. Smith, 
Hon. Will Cumback, J. C. Ochiltree, Mrs. Julia C. Aldrich, 
Mrs. D. M. Jordan, Mrs. Mary A. Leavitt. 



10 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Secretary — Mrs. M. L. Andrews. 

Con-esponding Secretary — Mrs. E. S. L. Thompson. 

Treasurer — Wm. Dudley Foulke. 

Executive Committee — W, DeWitt Wallace, J. C. Ochiltree, 
Margret Holmes Bates, Benj. S. Parker, A. H. Harryman, 
Eleanor Stackhouse, Dr. H. W. Taylor, Richard Lew. Daw- 
son, and Mary E. Cardwill. 

The repeated meetings of the Association had resulted in the 
formation of many pleasant acquaintanceships, and a genial social 
atmosphere was a specially noticeable feature of the Fourth Con- 
vention, or Third Annual Meeting, held at the same place, 
June 6, 7, and 8, i888. The Convention opened with a reception 
and informal literary exercises, and was truly a reunion of friends 
and a forecast of the spirit of the sessions of the two following 
days. The same spirit prevailing at the last meeting, at Warsaw, 
seems to prove conclusively that one, at least, of the principal 
objects of the organization has been permanently attained. 

The programme of the Fourth Convention combined the char- 
acteristics of the first two Conventions with that of the third. 
More writers were invited to take part, and no subjects were 
assigned except for two discussions — " Dialect, its Place in Litera- 
ture," paper by Dr. H. W. Taylor, and "Realism and Idealism," 
paper by Rev. Oscar McCulloch. These, with several impromptu 
discussions on subjects of practical importance to writers, and a 
large number of poems, essays, and sketches, furnished a choice 
literary banquet. The programme contained the names of thirty- 
seven writers, representing many of the best known among Western 
literati. Among the contributors of prose papers were Prof. J. C. 
Ridpath, Judge C. F. McNutt, Benj. S. Parker, Prof. J. M. Coulter, 
Mary B. Hussey, Margret Holmes Bates, Marie Louise Andrews, 
and L. May Wheeler. The poets represented included Dr. J. N. 
Matthews, who contributed the annual poem — "The People of 
the Pen ; " James Whitcomb Riley, Mrs. D. M. Jordan, Mrs. J. C. 
Aldrich, Mrs. Mary A. Leavitt, W. D. Gallagher, Hon. S. S. 
Harding, R. E. Pretlow, Richard Lew. Dawson, Evaleen Stein, 
W. D. Foulke, W. W. Pfrimmer, Mrs. E. S. L. Thompson, Dr. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 1 9 

H. W. Taylor, Herman Rave, Julia B. Nelson, and Mrs. J. V. H. 
Koons. 

Mrs. Sarah T. Bolton, full of years and honors, was present at 
one of the afternoon sessions, and favored the Convention with one 
of her characteristic poems — "When it Rains, Let it Rain." At 
the suggestion of Mr. Parker, Sarah T. Bolton, Hon. S. S. Har- 
ding, Wm. T. Gallagher, and Rebecca S. Nichols were made life 
members of the Association. 

Prof. George Bass, Prof. T. J. McAvoy, and Prof. Hattie 
A. Prunk added, by their elocutionary readings and recitations, to 
the enjoyment of the different sessions; and Mrs. Rose Paty 
Bailey and Mrs. John C. New, soloists, and Mr. M. H. Spades, 
violinist, kindly furnished the fine music given at the public enter- 
tainment. 

At this Convention, Hon. Maurice Thompson and Mrs. M. 
L. Andrews, who, as President and Secretary, had served the 
Association so faithfully and effectively from its beginning, were 
succeeded by Hon. Benj. S. Parker, President; L. May Wheeler, 
Secretary ; and Mary E. Cardwill, Corresponding Secretary. 

The new officers, like their predecessors, were charter mem- 
bers of the Association, and active in its work from the beginning. 
Hon. W. D. FouLKE was elected Treasurer for a second term. 
Other officers elected, were : * 

Vice-Presidents — Indiana — Maurice Thompson, James Whit- 
comb Riley; Illinois^ James Newton Matthews; Ohio — Mrs. 
Julia C. Aldrich ; Michigan — Clarence Ladd Davis. 

Executive Committee — Richard Lew. Daw.son, Prof. J. C. 
Ridpath, Hon. Will. Cumback, Judge Cyrus F. McNutt, Dr. 
H. W. Taylor, Mrs. E. S. L. Thompson, Mrs. D. M. Jordan. 

The history of the Association for the past year, and its culmi- 
nation in the Fifth Convention, or Fourth Annual Meeting, is 
told in the following i)ages. The former Secretary of the Associa- 
tion, with, it may be too great partiality, said, recently : 

"There never has been on this continent such a literary offering 
as we had at Warsaw. * * ^i^ In thinking of the magnificent 
and varied menu, I always quote to myself: 
' For I on honey dew have fed, 
And drank the milk of Paradise.' " 




feagnTfPBWTim^^/maPBWgre^'^ggBSS' 



Western Association oe Writers 

AT — 

Warsaw, Indiana, July 9, 10, 11, 12, 
1889. 



LAKESIDE." 




J<:\OMETIMES in life there 's a day, 

Fraught otily with moments of joy 
We bask in its ambient ray, 

Forgetful of sorrow's alloy. 
The pulse of the soul keepeth time, 
To the run of the rythmical lay, 
And the senses thrill to the chime. 
That move on the breezes at play. 



Fairer than artistry olden, 
Rarer than in ore-land golden 
Was the day begun, 
With the Summer sun 
Just glinting the dew 
With roseate hue, 

As over the hills. 
In radiant rills 

It ran to and fro 
With its shining flow, 
And gilded the land and the lake below. 



WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Richer than old Master's meter, 
Rounder note, and far, far sweeter 
Was the song of bird 
And soft air, stirred 
By zither of breeze 
O'er the moving trees 

And the waving grain, 
To a low refrain. 

And the breaking crest, 
Where the wavelets prest 
The water of Como's billowy breast. 

Diggers for root of word and wold, 
Delvers with pick of steel and gold, 
With loosened fetters, 
Found golden letters, 

That shone in gleams 
Of orient beams, 

Where the lilies dip 
For their morning sip — 
And supped their share 
Of the nectar rare 
They found in the sunshine flooding the air. 

Mirrored deep in the water blue. 
Margined 'round by the shadowed hue 
Of the old woods green. 
And the sloping sheen 
Of the weedy sedge 
On the pehbly edge 

Of the upland's slide 
To the lakelet's side. 

Was the arching space 
O'er the fairy place. 
Where spirit and sense grew in joy apace. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 23 

Written in lines deep cased in gold 
On mem'ry's foil, in precious mold, 
Is the rustic lore 
Of the storied shore 

That the pilot tells. 
As watching the swells 

He guideth the craft, , 

Until "fore and aft" 

Of sunrays and shade 
A woof he hath made, 
And with it a circlet of legends braid. 



Sometimes in life there 's a day 

When the spirit goes seeking its own ; 
And the sense of the soul finds its way 

To the haunts where memory hath flown. 
Then the light, the grace, and the bliss 

Of that day, and its purpose, I ween, 
Will return to the spot that in this 

Is entwined in Como's bright scene. 

/.. May Wheeler. 



Was it Anacreon whose muse would sing only of love, when 
he should have told of heroes and battle fields? 

Is it only poets who sing of the stars when the earth is bright 
with beauty ? 

The writer of prose, as well as verse, find harmonious associa- 
tion of thought between earth and sky — the light of day and the 
stars of night. 



24 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Those who attended the 

FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING 
and Fifth Convention 

OF 

The Western Association of Writers 
found 

" Nature's gold and silver" 
in the 

" Day-stars that ope their eyes with man to twinkle," 
and in 

" The moon 
That lay like the lily * * * 

* * * amid the locks of darkness, " 

and pleasure and profit in communion with those who 

" Make music with the common strings 
With which the world is strung." 



June 6, 1889, was issued the following 

CALL: 

The Fourth Annual Meeting of the Western Association of 
Writers will be held at Warsaw, Indiana, July 9, 10, 11, and 12, 1889. 
You are cordially invited to be present and to participate in the social enjoy- 
ments of the occasion. 

Warsaw is a well known Summer resort of northern Indiana, having 
beautiful lakes, handsome parks, and pleasant surroundings, which afiord 
opportunities for spending a delightful week and make it a most attractive 
place for this Summer meeting. 

The Lakeside Park Association, the Brothers Byer, Proprietors of the 
Spring Fountain Park, and the citizens of Warsaw have tendered the Asso- 
ciation and its friends every kindness and courtesy in anticipation of this 
annual reunion. 

The purpose of the Western Association of Writers is to encourage in 
this section of the Union an earnest, pure literature, that shall be thoroughly 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 25 

American in character, without being narrow, sectional or provincial. The 
Association does not assume in any sense to be a dictator. It simply desires 
to be a helper, by giving its support to the worthy efforts of Western writers, 
whether in the field of general literature, in thebroader realms of intelligent 
journalism, or in the special fields of scientific and educational work. And, 
while devoted specifically to the interests of Western writers, the Association 
desires to extend the right hand of fellowship and hearty good will to all 
worthy literary workers throughout the Union and in other countries. 

Members and friends of the Association are invited to come together in 
the spirit of mutual concession and harmonious union, to renew the bonds 
of friendship, widen the circle of acquaintance, and in many ways to gather 
strength and inspiration from the interchange of thought and sentiment. 
********* 

By Order of the Executive Committee. 

Benj. S. Parker, President. 

L. May Wheeler, Mary E. Cardwill, 

Recording Secretary. Corresponding Secretary. 



In pursuance of this call, the Fourth Annual Meeting of the 
Western Association of Writers opened at the First Presbyterian 
Church, in Warsaw, Indiana, the evening of July 9, by holding a 
social reunion, which included an informal program of literary 
exercises, and a reception tendered by prominent ladies and gentle- 
men of Warsaw, among whom were Hon. and Mrs. Wm. D. Frazer, 
Hon. and Mrs. Hiram S. Biggs, Gen. and Mrs. Reub. Williams, 
Mayor and Mrs. L. W. Royce, Dr. I. B. Webber, Rev. J. Q. Hall, 
Mrs. Metcalf Beck, Mrs. I. D. Widaman, Mrs. Q. A. Hossler, Mrs. 
Emma Ireland, Miss Lizzie Cosgrove, Mrs. Wood, and others. 
The Reception Committee of the Association consisted of 
Benj. S. Parker, of New Castle, Indiana; Marie L. Andrews, Con- 
nersville, Indiana ; Mary E. Cardwill, New Albany, Indiana ; L. May 
Wheeler, Springfield, Ohio. 



The Reunion was a happy event. After one hour of social- 
ity, the President of the Association, Hon. Benj. S. Parker, was 
called for. His response will be remembered as peculiarly happy 



26 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

and appropriate, including a brief explanation of the object of the 
organization, and the proposed work of the convention, and an in- 
vitation to the citizens of Warsaw to attend its sessions. 

Then followed a "banquet of speech" of an entirely informal 
character. 

James Whitcomb Riley delighted the audience with his inimit- 
able rendering of 

" ORPHANT ANNIE," 

and the war story of which the following is a part : 

"the old man AND JIM." 

' ' Old man never had much to say — 

'Ceptin' to Jim, — 
And Jim was the wildest boy he had — 

And the Old man jes' wrapped up in him! 
Never heerd him speak but once 
Er twice in my life, — and first time was 
When the army broke out, and Jim he went. 
The Old man backin' him, fer three months. — 
And all 'at I heerd the Old man say 
Was, jes as we turned to start away — 
" ' Well : good-bye, Jim, 

Take keer of yourself ! ' " 



Think of a private, now perhaps. 

We'll say like Jim, 
'At's dumb clean up to the shoulder straps - 
Think of him — with the war plum' through, 
And the glorious old Red-White-and-Blue 
A laughin' the news down over Jim 
And the Old man, bendin' over him — 
The surgeon turnin' away with tears 
'At had'n't leaked fer years and years — 
As the hand of the dyin' boy clung to 
His father's, the old voice in his ears, — 
"Well : good-bye, Jim : 

Take keer of yourse'f. " 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 27 

Mr. W. W. Pfrimmer, of Kentland, Indiana, sustained his 
growing prestige as a writer and recitationist in the presentation of 

" BOHEMIAN OATS." 

And the singing sisterhood of the Association was represented 
by Mrs. D. M. Jordan, of Richmond, Indiana, who gave her poem, 
suggested by an incident while watching the fading of a rainbow, 
which has been twice set to music, and is entitled 

" A VAIN QUEST." 

We started one morn, my love and I, 

On a journey brave and bold ; 
'Twas to find the end of the rainbow, 

And the buried bag of gold. 
But the clouds rolled by from the summer's sky, 

And the radiant bow grew dim. 
And we lost the way where the treasure lay, 

Near the sunset's golden rim. 

The twjlight fell like a curtain 

Pinned with the evening star. 
And we saw in the shining heavens 

The new moon's golden car. 
And we said, as our hands clasped fondly, 

" What though we found no gold ? 
Our love is a richer treasure 

Than the rainbow's sack can hold." 

And years, with their joys and sorrows. 

Have passed since we lost the way 
To the beautiful buried treasure 

At the end of the rainbow's ray ; 
But love has been true and tender. 

And life has been rich and sweet. 
And we still clasp hands with the olden joy 

That made our day complete. 

Mr. Franklin E. Denton, literary editor of the Cleveland, Ohio, 
"Sun and Voice," and author of "Early Poetical Works," pre- 
sented the following elegiac and philosophic poem, suggested by 
the tomb of Garfield : 



28 western association of writers. 

"at lake view cemetery." 

Here, by unnumbered pilgrims sought, 

Is an historic tomb. Above 
Its precious dust hath genius wrought 

In massive art her reverent love. 
What life more fortunate than his, 
Who hath two immortalities ? 

Weep not above the buried great ; 

Let all our tears be selfish tears. 
Bewail instead our bitter fate. 

Who grovel out our empty years. ' 

One need not part with breath to die ; 
We are the dead ones — you and I. 

They only live — the glorious few. 

Who on the world their impress leave. 

And who in figures bold and true 

Their years in human memory weave ; 

As once Matilda, o'er the sea. 

Wove Norman deeds in tapestry. 

They live, they breathe, and only they. 

Who, when hath fallen sword or pen. 
And worms are at their hearts, yet sway 

The idealities of men. 
Who, though their dust be in the wind, 
Forevermore are lords of mind ! 

Mr. Clarence E. Hough, of Greenfield, Indiana, crowned the 
occasion by a complimentary rendering of President Parker's pop- 
ular poem, 

"the cabin in the clearing." 

Backward gazing through the shadows. 

As the evening fades away, 
I perceive the little footprints. 

Where the morning sunlight lay 
Warm and mellow, on the pathway 

Leading to the open door 
Of the cabin in the clearing. 

Where my soul reclines once more. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 29 

Oh ! that cabin in the clearing, 

Where my Mary came, a bride, 
Where our children grew to love us, 

Where our little Robbie died. 
Still in memory blooms the red-bud 

By the doorway, and the breeze 
Tingles with the spicewood's odor 
And the catbird's melodies. 
* * * » * 
Now, that cabin in the clearing 

Is but dust, blown here and there. 
Where the palpitating engines 

Breathe their darkness on the air ; 
Where my forests towered in beauty. 

Now a smoky village stands, 

And the rows of factories cluster 

Grimly on my fertile lands. 

-:<■**** 

" Eighty, and a memory only," 

Is that what you speak of me ? 
Well, the memory is a blessing, 

And its pictures fair to see ; 
While the fairest and the sweetest 

Lingers with me evermore — 
'Tis the cabin in the clearing, 
And my Mary at the door. 



PROCEEDINGS. 



"Lakeside Park," Warsaw, Indiana, 
Wednesday, July 10, 1889. 

MORNING SESSION. 



TABERNACLE. 



Hon. Benj. S. Parker, President of the Western Association 
of Writers, opened the First Session of its Fourth Annual Meeting, 
in the Tabernacle at "Lakeside Park," at lo a. m., Wednesday, 
July 10, 1889. 

L. May Wheeler, Mary E. Cardwill, Secretaries. 



30 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

The following members of the Association were in attendance: 
Judge C. F. McNutt, of Terre Haute; Prof. John Clark Ridpath, 
Greencastle; Judge T. B. Redding, New Castle; Geo. B. Card- 
will, New Albany; Dr. H. W. Taylor, Sullivan; J. P. Dunn, Jr., 
State Librarian of Indiana, Indianapolis; Mrs. D. M. Jordan, 
Richmond; Mary Hartwell Catherwood, Hoopeston, Illinois ; Marie 
L. Andrews, Connersville; Mrs. Benj. S. Parker, New Castle; 
Mrs. E. S. L. Thompson, Winchester; James Whitcomb Riley, 
Indianapolis; Franklin E. Denton, Cleveland, Ohio; Hannah E. 
Davis, Spiceland ; Angeline Teal, Kendallville; M. Sears Brooks, 
Madison; Ella M. Nave, Indianapolis; Mary A. Leavitt, Vernon; 
W. P. Needham, Winchester ; Grace Taylor, Sullivan ; Josephine 
Brooks, Madison; Mrs. J. C. Briggs, Sullivan; N. J. Clodfelter, 
Crawfordsville ; Clarence E. Hough, Greenfield; Eleanor Stack- 
house, Chicago, Illinois ; John Lee, Crawfordsville ; W. W. 
Pfrimmer, Kentland; Mrs. J. V. H. Koons, Muncie; Dr. Rachel 
Swain, Indianapolis; Mrs. S. C. McCrea, Wabash; Nettie Rans- 
ford, Indianapolis ; C. W. Wellman, Sullivan ; William Alfred 
Hough, Greenfield; Mrs. M. B. Gorsline, Fort Wayne; Jo. A. 
Parker, Winchester, Tennessee; Mrs. F. E. Denton, Cleveland, 
Ohio; Sarah A. Beck, E. M. Chaplin, Metcalf Beck, T. J. San- 
ders, of Warsaw. 

Rev. J. Q. Hall, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of 
Warsaw, offered prayer. 

Hon. Hiram S. Biggs, of Warsaw, President of the "Warsaw 
Summer Resort Association," presented the 

"Address of Welcome." 

He gave a comprehensive yet brief review of the growth of 
American authorship, comparing it with the progress of the material 
interests of the country, showing that the advance in higher intelli- 
gence, literature, and ari:, surpassed that of any other modern 
nation. And in behalf of the "Warsaw Summer Resort Asso- 
ciation" and the citizens of Warsaw, extended to the members of 
the Association the freedom of the Park, the Lake and its belong- 
ings, and the city. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 3 1 

Judge Cyrus F. McNutt, of Terre Haute, Indiana, made the 

" RESPONSE " 

in an equally fraternal spirit, and in behalf of the Association ex- 
pressed the pleasure it gave to be so cordially welcomed to Warsaw, 
and its manifold attractions. He said : 

"In my travels amid the sunset scenes of the Pacific coast, 
the rugged grandeur of the Western mountains, the wonders of the 
Northwest, the green hills, sloping valleys, and silver lakes of the 
East, none form remembered scenes of more tranquil beauty than 
' Lakeside Park' and yon sparkling sheet of water." 

James Whitcomb Riley occupied the Chair during the presen- 
tation of the 

"president's address," 

by Hon. Benj. S. Parker. 

Friends and Members of the Convention : 

Some philosophical student of the American character has 
been represented as saying in effect that should three Americans 
meet by accident in an uninhabited desert, their first concern 
would be to select officers, adopt a Constitution, and form an Asso- 
ciation. Literary clubs and associations are, however, as old as 
the popular interest in literature. They have not always been 
bound together by constitutions and laws. Perhaps, in the major- 
ity of instances, they have consisted only of a few kindred spirits 
in a single city or neighborhood, drawn and held together by the 
free-masonry of similar thoughts and aspirations. Often the light 
and warmth of a single great genius or scholar has been the focus 
about which such groups were clustered. In such cases, when the 
light has gone out, the groups have continued to exist only till the 
warmth of the taper that nourished them has passed away. The 
modern association gathers about an idea or a purpose, or, it may 
be, a number of ideas and purposes, rather than about an indi- 
vidual. In this it is often a disappointment to the inflated ambitions 
of men ; but it is none the less efficacious for good that it refuses 
to consider the individual as greater than the purpose. When one 
thinker becomes the model for a school of thinkers, every member 
of the school is simply so much added to its model, and, in the 
end, the model is credited with the entire sum. The literary 
association that is to be of permanent value can not be merely a 
Browning Club or a class in Hawthorne or Dickens. Many a noble 



32 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

poem has lost its identity and obscured its author's fame by the 
rays from Tennyson's genius which the author had caught and 
woven into his song, as the fabled carpet-weaver caught and im- 
prisoned the sunlight in his beautiful web. The study of models 
to enlarge and to educate is a noble pursuit. The attempt to fit one 
mind, or many, to the matured model is always a waste of energy. 
The greater the model, the more futile the attempt. The time has 
past when one man's thought can give its color and the cut of its 
garments to a whole generation of thinkers. The literary asso- 
ciation that is to be helpful to its members and to the world must 
not attempt too much. It must be democratic rather than exclu- 
sive. Those who dwell upon Olympus, having the favor of the 
gods, may not need the sympathy of their fellow men ; but the 
most of us inhabit the valleys and know little of the ponderous 
deities. Literature, though it may ascend as a libation to the 
great, has that seeming perversity, which belongs to Nature in all 
her moods, of returning to the sources from whence it arose. 
Even the rainbow is not long content to glorify the clouds, but 
swiftly returns to the earth and the sea and the white light from 
whence it came. So literature forever returns to the green meadows 
and spicy woods, and, sending its roots into the virgin soil, gathers 
from it the sweetness and strength of a new life. It fades and loses 
its warmth, its strength goes out, and its color becomes the glitter 
of frost when it dwells too long upon the summits. It must come 
back forever to the people, inform itself from the toils and strug- 
gles of their daily lives, and warm its heart by the strong fires of 
their affections, their devotion, and their patriotism. When litera- 
ture divorces itself from nature, it falls into decay. The decadence 
of the writer and the statesman, alike, have their beginning in con- 
tempt for the people, and neglect of their aspirations and needs. 
This Association should stand as a permment declaration that 
amid the toil and bustle of Western life there exists a body of 
earnest men and women, who, while as deeply imbued with the 
active spirit of business growth and material prosperity as their 
neighbors, are at the same time deeply interested in every worthy 
effort to advance the standard of general intelligence, and widen 
the circle of intellectual enjoyment in this section of the Union. 

THE WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS 

represents a class that is a constantly multiplying force in the ad- 
vancing civilization of the country. The number enrolled in the 
Association may be small, but the class is large. The Association 
has been laughed at because its members are not all of that class 
which critics are pleased to term " Acknowledged Authors." But 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 33 

therein lies one of its sources of strength. Its ability to serve gen- 
eral rather than private interests. The encouragement that one 
"Acknowledged Author" gives to another " Acknowledged Au- 
thor" can scarcely be said to constitute a force for the general 
advancement of literary interest. Indeed, it has been sometimes 
asserted that the love which they bear to each other does not always 
exceed the warmth of a Vesuvian eruption. However that may 
be, the zeal which brings "acknowledged" or "unacknowledged" 
writers, scholars, and thinkers, together in an organization for 
the encouragement of the study of literature amongst the peo- 
ple, and for whatever is best and truest in literature among the 
writers, certainly possesses strength and vitality in the purposes 
that impel its progress. This Association cannot become a school 
of close criticism. It cannot advance the popularity of individual 
writers except only as it can encourage them to their best and 
thus assist them to win what hard work and continued applica- 
tion may attain for them. It "can not make silver spoons of 
pewter." It can not dictate terms to publishers. It can not even 
secure the favor of publishers to those products of Western genius 
that are in themselves excellent, until it can first assure a market 
for them when they are published. When this Association was 
organized it was laughingly characterized as an effort to get up a 
corner in Spring poetry, and fix the price of manuscript stories at 
so much per yard. This exaggeration probably grew out of the 
popular knowledge that ninety-nine writers out of every hundred 
are forced to make a fight for the favor of publishers only less de- 
termined and persistent than the long fight they must make with 
themselves to deserve success. It does not change the fact that he 
who fights longest and hardest usually wins the most permanent 
success. The truth remains that a market is the prime necessity to 
publication. That must be assured by the reputation of the author 
or by the character of that which he has to offer. If a writer pos- 
sesses only the genius of a mere word carpenter and is devoid of 
conscience he can win with ease that unsavory fame that will pro- 
cure for him the favor of a conscienceless class of publishers, and 
put money in his pocket. The newspapers recently told the story 
of an author of that class who has grown wealthy, but is so thor- 
oughly disgusted and heart-sick in the hourly contemplation of the 
vile work that has given him success, that he will not permit his 
children to come to the knowledge of it. 

Such literary effort is not only unworthy, it is accursed. But 
with that effort which s|)rings from noble imjjulses and aspires to lofty 
ends, the story is far different. The door may never open for it. 
Public favor may never smile upon it in such an emphatic way that 



34 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

it will attract the publisher and the book-seller to its excellence, but 
it will bring no night-mares of regret to haunt the pillow of age. 
While all this is true, and so true as to be almost trite, it is also true 
that the best collection of poems or essays that ever was offered 
upon the literary market would be loss and disappointment to a 
publisher, if the author were unknown to the buyers of books. 
While on the other hand, the trashiest of "slop shop" novels, of 
the salacious or blood-curdling variety, might be a source of revenue 
and business success. To a community of hungry people a basket 
of potatoes would be worth far more than a like quantity of 
diamonds, unless the diamonds could be exchanged for food. It 
is the hunger for a thing that makes a market for it. The hunger 
may be natural or artificial, or it may be simply the fashion But 
from whatever source it may come, it must exist before the natural 
result can follow. There must be knowledge of Western litera- 
ture before there can be any wide-spread hunger for it, or any ade- 
quate market for Western books. There must be a market for 
Western-made-books — books that are both written and published 
West of the Appelachians before literature in this section of the 
Union will offer pecuniary rewards except to the few or to those 
who are connected with journalism, or who are engaged in special 
enterprises, or in special fields of investigation. It is by no means 
to be assumed that Western literature is to be supported simply 
because it is Western. Literature must appeal to man, not to local 
pride nor to local prejudice, in order to be worthy to succeed. It 
njay have local color and local flavor ; it may deal with local char- 
acteristics, and breathe forth the neighborhood atmosphere, but it 
must have that within it which would appeal to cultivated people 
anywhere, were they surrounded by the influences and conditions 
of the locality where it was written. Herein is where a Western 
Association of Writers, while making no warfare upon the literature 
of other sections or other countries, may and should be of large 
and active service to Western literature by championing the cause 
of that literature in any and every legitimate way. In our section 
of the Union the struggle has always been hard and unequal. It 
is needless to recite the reasons for this state of affairs. Any one 
who looks upon this fair land and remembers that it has grown up 
from wilderness and swamp, unbroken prairie and stagnant streams 
within a hundred years," will scarcely ask why it has not won more 
honors in literature and art. 

Literature has not been practiced in the West, as some have as- 
serted, as a recreation from more exacting toils. People do not pro- 
duce literature as a recreation. In the case of Western pioneers it has 
been practiced as an additional weight of toil ; willingly, doubtless 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 35 

often gladly, though sometimes i)ainfully, assumed in answer to the 
promptings of genius that would not be wholly smothered, or at the 
higher dictates of conscience that would not be still. 

A score of years has not yet passed since the world at large 
began to make jiaying demand for the book of any Western author, 
outside of certain school, professional, or special historical works, 
that could not well be produced elsewhere. Let it not be said that 
this was because the West had produced no men and women of 
genius. Who will believe that John B. Dillon or Robert Dale 
Owen could not have won large distinction in the fields of history 
and belles-letters had there been sufficient encouragement to give 
them opportunity. Or that George D. Prentice, Otway Curry, or 
Benjamin F. Taylor might not have taken their places among the 
world's great ])oets, had not the struggle to be and to become have 
necessarily consumed so much of their strength. That the public 
sentiment which permits such things has largely survived the pio- 
neer period, is a fact for our consideration. The fault, if fault 
there be, is with us. Few people respect the man who does not 
respect himself. We must learn to respect and support whatever 
is worthy in our own literature if we would be other than at once 
dependents upon the favor of other sections, and supporters of their 
productions to the exclusion of those of our neighbors and friends. 
We must learn that a good' book published in Chicago or 'Cincin- 
nati has precisely the same value that should attach to it if her- 
alded from London or New York. A neat little poem, delightful 
sketch, or crisp and breezy story, is just as enjoyable in the col- 
umns of "The Inter Ocean," "The Courier-Journal," or "The 
Indianapolis Journal," as it would be in "The Saturday Review," 
or in "The Atlantic Monthly." The sum of the whole matter is 
this : We in the West need to be taught that merit is the one thing 
to be sought in literature, as it is in a machine, or a brand of man- 
ufactured goods. We take nothing else on trust so largely as the 
books we read. If in anything else that we support by our hard 
earnings we should be charged with discriminating against our 
own producers, our indignation would be speedily excited to the 
combative point. 

There is no danger that in becoming acquainted with the 
work of Western writers and thinkers, we shall be tempted to neg- 
lect the work of others who are not of this section, or to deal un- 
justly by them. 

Genuine fame, that includes length of days and profitable pop- 
ularity, could not be given to weak or unworthy productions by 
all the forces of local interest that might combine in their behalf. 

But if this Association may aid in attracting attention to the 



36 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

fact that we have a Hterature which has demands upon the Western 
pubHc, and is worthy of its support, it will thereby do an impor- 
tant work, that will, alone, more than justify its perpetuation. 

Our fight should not be for a sectional literature, but for a 
public sentiment that will not neglect or reject literature simply be- 
cause it is produced by our neighbors and friends to whom our first 
duties as citizens of a common Republic of Letters as well as of 
States, are due. It is a hopeful sign that where Western people 
were once slow to recognize literary merit in their own section, 
even when it came back to them with the seal of foreign endorse- 
ment upon it, they are now ready and eager to do so. Twenty- 
five years ago " Ben Hur" would not have found Western buyers by 
the hundreds of thousands. Twenty-five years ago our half-score of 
story-tellers and poets who are winning solid rewards as well as 
golden opinions, would have found it necessary to limit production 
in order not to over stock the country newspapers that would have 
been sufficiently generous to publish their effusions without charge, 
and throw in the various improvements made in the text by " intel- 
ligent compositors." 

But it is not to our credit as a people that they were forced to 
win their spurs elsewhere, or in other fields, before we could see 
any good in them. '' 

As a people, we have been too much like the great man of a 
small town, who recently expressed himself in speaking of one who 
was reared in the village, but whose genius has since won national 
recognition, and shone as a light across the border and over the sea : 

" Well, I guess I must have been wrong ; all the world is agin 
me, but blamed ef I thought there was anything in the feller." We 
have said it over and over and over again of students and thinkers 
when they were young and needed our strength to supplement 
their own. "Blamed ef there's anything in the feller!" It has 
been the cry of an emerging civilization still clouded by the shad- 
ows of distrustful and jealous savagery. Its heartlessness has been 
mistaken for practical common sense, until the very fact that a 
man or woman has cherished literary aspirations of the higher and 
nobler. sort has, not infrequently, subjected him or her to suspicion, 
reproach, and, sometimes, even to scorn and persecution. Per- 
haps this is true, in a sense, everywhere until the aspirant has dem- 
onstrated his power. Bat with us it has followed good men and 
women to their graves. Free schools and the universal newspaper 
are driving out this form of evil spirit. 

It is the province of this Association, and the class — which 
without assuming undue importance — it seeks to represent, to see 
that when this spirit is finally cast out, that the good angels of art 
and literature shall come in and abide with us. 



FdURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 37 

The phrase, " encouragement of literature," if undefined or 
unrestricted in its meaning, may signify that which is elevating, or 
that which is base and grovelling, or it may include both. 

It is not to be presumed that the members of this Association 
are indifferent as to the character of the literary standard they 
would advance. Much that is popularly termed literature is not to 
be considered in any just estimate of the value of literary effort. 
That w^hich appeals to the bestial passions, to the vices and frail- 
ties of humanity deserves only condemnation ; and yet the sorrow- 
ful fact remains that the poisonous trash which is consumed every 
day in these Central States of the West, exceeds the number of 
wholesome books that are ])urchased and read. Could those whose 
lives are distorted and darkened by this vile stuff, be induced to 
turn from it to that which is pure in thought and noble in purpose, 
the market for wholesome literature would be wonderfully accel- 
erated. 

There is a constant turning back toward the primal sources of 
things, in literature as in nature. But that which has its fountains 
of life in the sewers and dens of shame and infamy is out of the 
natural order, and has no abiding place in literature which either 
correct morals or true art will sanction. The literature that has 
survived the lapse of years and the wreck of nations was, in every 
instance, written above, rather than below the level of the age in 
which it was produced. 

The author of to-day who writes on the same jjlane with Chau- 
cer, is further below the level of his age than the associate of 
Petrarch was above the popular hori/on in the time of the third 
Edward. 

It is not necessary that a poem or a story should have a moral 
affixed to it, like the postscript to a lady's letter, or Artemus Ward's 
oft-repeated label, "This are sarkasm," in order that the reader 
should recognize it and profit by it. A wholesome story, proceed- 
ing on natural lines, carries and imparts it own moral, as a rose 
does its odor. A beautiful i)oem is a moral in itself. History, well 
and truly told, that deals with the principles which underlie gov- 
ernments, dictate policies, and lead to success or failure, has no 
need to give way to trite homilies. Nature, when unprostituted by 
vice or unspoiled by the artifices of men, is always true and whole- 
some, always moral to the core, and that art which best reproduces 
nature is always the truest. 

He who writes with a desire to make better those who read 
has, at least, the true nobility of purpose, however much he may 
fail in performance. 

Old Timotheus, " who raised a mortal to the skies," had no 



38 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

need to divide his crown with her whose siren song "drew an angel 
down," if the old poets did utter the fiat. 

Better cultivate potatoes for a living and write for love than 
win temporary notoriety or accumulate gold by producing literature 
that only escapes the law because it is so constructed that its licen- 
tious import needs not to be displayed in printed words upon the 
page. The best and the worst things in literature are those that 
must be read between the lines. Suggestive literature is most pow- 
erful for good, and doubly potent for evil. If we are to have an 
essentially American literature, it must be marked by that purity 
which belongs to nature in her unspoiled conditions. Crime is 
never a healthy inspiration. 

Filth and rottenness are the associates of decay. Literature 
that is inspired by depraved passions, or that feeds upon them, is 
but the fungus growth of decay, and the thirst which demands it 
springs from the fever of diseased conscience. 

In this country human life has freer play, and larger possibili- 
ties are open before it, than elsewhere. The struggle for bread is 
not such a hand-to-hand conflict, with the odds against the toiler, 
as in the older countries. We have not the effects of ages of super- 
stition, oppression, and powerless ignorance to contend with, ex- 
cept as they are imported with the maimed and suffering people 
whom they have crippled. Here, above and beyond all lands, 
literature should be a source of daily blessing. It should teach 
the truth of nature, the high destiny of man, the dignity of toil, 
the gospel of love, not always, as the preacher or philosopher would 
teach them, but as every successful representation of the best and 
truest teaches the best and truest. The pictures that were wrought 
by the old masters are models for all time, because they are true to 
noble conceptions of outline, form, and character. Such must our 
literature be with respect to the best American life and thought. If 
it might always be pure as the poems of Longfellow, the stories of 
Hawthorne, or the essays of Emerson, there would still be abund- 
ant space in its wide field for all the varied forms of literary activ- 
ity ; for the idealist and the realist, the logician and the visionary, 
the philosopher and the wit ; and even the dialect poets and negro 
delineators could obtain standing room, and never find it necessary 
to soil their lines with vulgar inuendos, nor perfume their pages 
with cess-pool odors in order to make them sell. 

It is lamented that we import so much foreign trash, born of 
brains poisoned with the fatal miasma of moral corruption and de- 
cay. But if we must have it, it is better to import it than to create 
it. How infinitely better than either it would be to replace it with 
a pure and wholesome literature that should teach the American 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 39 

idea that man is more than glory, more than gold and trappings, 
and titled power. We have had too much of the flunkeysm of 
weak imitation. Too much of the first and second-hand teaching 
that there is no dignity in life except such as is bestowed upon it by 
position, station, title, caste. And no matter whether it is imported 
or is only the weak wash of little minds striving to imitate the im- 
ported article, it is alike un-American in conception and vicious in 
tendency. 

If the Western Association of Writers can only do a little 
toward the banishment of this unnatural literature and the planting 
and encouragement of a strong and healthy growth in its place, a 
growth that shall be permeated in all its parts by the spirit of 
American liberty, be vital with the instincts of patriotism, and 
sweet and true in its devotion to the highest and best, it will have 
accomplished a noble work, and be entitled to, and receive from the 
world at large, the greeting of the Gracious Master, " Well done, 
good and faithful servant." 

The highest purpose of literature is to ennoble life and increase 
the sum of human happiness. Compared with this, the glory of 
individual success is worthless, and individual gain but ashes. In 
this country we need loyalty to ideas, not to ruling dynasties. The 
froth of the incendiary and anarchist, instigating murder as a 
remedy for ills that only education and intelligence, wedded to 
temperance and economy, can cure, is as far from the American 
idea as the thought of him who sees nobility only in the scions of 
royalty, or in the insignia of power. 

The American author of the future, while detracting nothing 
from the achievements of the past, and gladly availing himself of 
the excellences of current foreign literature, will yet be true to his 
privileges and inspirations. He will teach that loyalty to American 
ideas and institutions which shall forbid danger from usurpation on 
the one hand, or from red-handed anarchy on the other. 

The best outcome of a national literature and education is a 
prosperous, self-poised people, who are largely a law unto them- 
selves, and who are alike ready to govern, or to yield obedience to 
just government. Such a populace is an inspiration, as well as a 
result. With such purposes inspiring those who write and those 
who teach, and with such hopeful surroundings to insjiire them, may 
we not anticipate the coming of that era of which one of our early 
bards discoursed, when 

" Smiling Shakespeares here shall follow, 
Newtons glorify our sod ; 
Miltons stand with blind eyes chanting, 
Opposite the throne of God ! " 



40 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

We are but toilers in the pioneer corps, striving to open roads 
for the army of the future to follow. Yet others have been here 
before us — brave coureurs des bois — who have blazed a few paths 
in the wilderness, and erected a few chiseled stones of imperishable 
granite to mark the way. 

That the paths which lead to success lie along the line of 
loyalty to nature in all her sweet and pure revelations, admits of 
neither negation nor doubt. 

Western literature may well be sectional in its fidelity to west- 
ern scenery, western character, and western peculiarities. But 
beyond that it will be national, and beyond its national character it 
will be cosmopolitan. 

As Homer sang for Greece, Shakespeare for England, and 
Burns for Scotland, the western author of the future will write for 
the West, for America, for mankind. 

Colonel Coates Kinney, of Xenia, Ohio, of whom Julian 
Hawthorne says, "Few poets have so effectively communicated 
their inmost souls to the reader," wrote the " Annual Poem," which 
was read by L. May Wheeler, as follows : 

THE SHIBBOLETH. 

[Written by invitation of the Western Association of Writers for reading in tlieir 
Convention at Warsaw, Indiana, July 10, 1889.] 

The gods are all dead — glory be to God ! 

Though still they ghost it in old words, as Pan, 
Apollo, Jove, the Numen (or the Nod), 

That cast thin shadows in the thought of man. 
Yet they themselves have toppled from their hight 

Olympian and fallen back to clod. 
Science has exorcised them with its light. 

Religion banished them from fane and shrine ; 
Only in Poesy they haunt the night. 

Pale reminiscences of life divine. 

Now that the Christ has come, iconoclast 

Of old religions, now that Science flings 
Its dawn-flame on the darkness of the past, 

And fetches into sun the truth of things, 
Why is it that Imagination moons ? 

Why is it Poesy still sits and sings 




'^<1-^^<^^ZI^^ 




^ 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 4I 

The babe-songs of old fairyland and croons 

Her mother-melodies of ignorance, 
Her Indian mimicries of Finnish runes, 

Her Holy Grails, her Arthurs of romance ? 

Why with Enhymion still fondly mope, 

Shaping Love's Lady out of moonshine — why. 
Unless our Poesy is past all hope 

And pining with the Muses Nine to die ? 
The Nine are every one already dead ; 

It is their airy ghosts that linger nigh : 
They all, with god Apollo at their head. 

They all would not be air enough to blow 
The sail of Chambered Nautilus aspread 

And push it over Prose's undertow. 

It seems not strange that our new world of Fact 

Should look on Verse as an anachronism ; 
A stopping of the white light to refract 

Its rays to colors through old Fancy's prism — • 
Nay, juggling with the light, in darkened rooms. 

By Fancy's worn-out tricks of spiritism. 
While lived the gods the words of Song were blooms 

Upon the tree of life ; but such words now 
Are withered garlands on the dead gods' tombs. 

Dry wreaths around a marble Muse's brow. 

Our Poesy is like that Gadarene 

Of old who roamed among the tombs, and raved. 
And gashed himself with stones, and cried his threne 

To the sane Jesus, who rebuked and saved. 
She, too, has come from out the burial-place, 

With night-voice by Minerva's owl depraved. 
To meet the Wonder-Worker face to face 

And wait for Legion out of her to pass : 
As they relinquish her from their embrace 

They rend her garments into Leaves of Grass. 

The Wonder-Worker is our living truth — 

Truth of to-day, the knowledge of our age ; 
This shall restore old Poesy to youth. 

And bring her back to reason from her rage. 
She shall look round herself and shall behold 

Kteligion, Story, Science on the stage 



42 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Of the new Learning's language, and grow bold 
To take her role with them and act her part ; 

Chief part, as in her glorious days of old, 
When she led nature captive to her art. 

Yes, Poesy must play first character. 

Must queen it in this drama of the world, 
Or else her singing-robes be stripped from her 

And she be in the ballet frocked and girled; 
Her voice of goddess in the chorus drowned. 

Her gait of goddess capered, toed, and twirled. - 
Shall she be second ? Where is first, then, found. 

In Music ? Music is her serving-maid. 
In Eloquence ? When Eloquence is crowned 

He stands in her lent mantle of flame arrayed. 

Painting and Sculpture rival for her hand ; 

She is their sweetheart and their sovran. Yea, 
All arts concenter on her, as a band 

Of damsels ringed around a Queen of May. 
Yet she must wane away as moon no more, 

But orient herself and dawn as day. 
The gods that she has practiced to adore. 

The liturgies employed to worship them, 
The rhetoric defunct of fairy lore, 

Belong not to her New Jerusalem. 

In this New City come down out of heaven. 

And given her to reign in if she will. 
No pagan deities, as on the seven 

World-topping hills of Rome, the temples fill ; 
No satyrs, fauns, or nymphs there are to name 

And designate to wood, and vale, and hill : 
It is old Nature newly searched with flame, 

Discovered newly by exploring mind — 
The truth of things, the truth of words that aim 

The fine realities of things to find. 

Words are her kingdom : Poetry is words ; 

Words aptly chosen by their aptest sense. 
But natural as babblement of birds ; 

Words that are music, painting, eloquence ; 
That are keen light from out a core of fire. 

And are of things not seen soul's evidence ; 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 43 

That star the darkness of sublime desire 

With hintings of the somewhere-shining sun, 

And chime our still thoughts like the morning-choir 
That sang together o'er creation done. 

But Poesy must keep within the law ; 

Her power of miracles is obsolete ; 
Plans of creation she anew must draw ; 

Her miscreations she can ne'er complete : 
Muse, Goddess, Triton, Siren, Fairy, Troll, 

Each a stark mummy in its winding-sheet, 
She never shall re-word with life and soul. 

These are the names of fossils that belong 
To mind of other epochs, and the whole 

Potence of life is gone from them in Song. 

No ! Song must throb in words of living speech ; 

Must think the living thoughts of living men ; 
Must learn of living love what love can teach. 

And fire the world with living hope again : 
Descend from ether to the atmosphere 

And breathe afresh the common oxygen. 
Then wits no more shall query, with a sneer, 

How long may Poesy live after death. 
She shall be known then, when she does appear. 

By this : S/if -anil not speak the Shibboleth. 

Prof. John Clark Ridpath offered a Resolution, to be incor- 
porated in a telegram to Colonel Coates Kinney, expressive of the 
appreciation of the Convention of his beautiful poem, also provid- 
ing for the appointment of a Committee to draft the same. 

The Resolution was adopted. 

The Committee included Prof. John Clark Ridpath, James 
Whitcomb Riley, Dr. H. W. Taylor. 

TELEGRAM. 

Fourth Annual Convention Western Association of Writers, 

Warsaw, Ind., July lo, rS8g. 
To Col Coates Kinney, Xenia, Ohio: 

The Western Association of Writers, by enthusiastic vote, tender you 
congratulations and thanks for your admirable poem, so worthy of the 
author, just read before the Convention. John Clark Ridpath, 

James Whitcomb Riley, 
H. W. Taylor. 



44 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Judge Cyrus F. McNutt made a motion providing for the pub- 
lication of President Parker's address. 

Mrs. M. L. Andrews seconded the motion. 

Remarks were made by Mrs. D. M. Jordan, Prof. J. C. Rid- 
path, W. W. Pfrimm.er, J. W. Riley, and Dr. H. W. Taylor. 

The motion was unanimously agreed to. 

Mr. Clarence A. Hough humorously illustrated the recitative 
style of "the modern elocutionist" in a presentation of "The 
Lady of Seville." 

Committees appointed : 

EVENING PROGRAMS. 

Judge C. F. McNutt, Mr. G. B. Cardwill, Mrs. M. L. Andrews, Mary 
E. Cardwill, L. May Wheeler, Ella M. Nave. 

BANQUET. 

J. P. Dunn, Jr., James Whitcomb Riley, Mrs. M. L Andrews. 

Recess. 



Afternoon Session, July 10, 1:80 i'. m. 

TABERNACLE. 

The Association resumed its Wednesday sessions, after a recess 
of one hour and a half. 

Mr. W. P. Needham,.of Winchester, Ind., author of " Phan- 
tasmagorian Theology" and other works, presented the following 
poetical 

"ADVICE TO A FRIEND." 



I. 
If a lily please thee, take it ; 

Ask not of the earth and air 
Where they found it ; simply take it, 

All its whiteness you may share. 

If the sunshine please thee, take it ; 

Ask not why it comes to thee. 
It is thine to love, and make it 

Brighten all life's mystery. 



FOURTH ANNUM. MF.ETINO. 45 

If the moon and stars surround thee, 

When thy soul would leap and hark, 
Question not the love that bound thee 

To the jewels of the dark. 

If a brother falter, fold him 

In thy mantle soft and warm ; 
Take him, love him, soothe him, hold him. 

Shield him from the passing storm. 

Should one come to thee in sorrow, 

Come to thee from some abysm, 
Telling of a sad to-morrow, 

Do not flee to priest or ism ; 

Lead him where the soft airs flowing 

Winnow care and grief away ; 
Comfort, heal him, only knowing 

That he needeth thee to-day. 

If thou gaze for aye and ever 

Out upon the unknown seas. 
Watching, weeping, praying ever 

For belated argosies, 

Think not that the gods bereave thee. 

That thy days are incomplete, 
And if joy and love deceive thee. 

Ask no questions — time is fleet. 

Do what seemeth best and fleetly. 

For there is no stop nor stay, 
Do it well and do it sweetly. 

Swift the current runs away. 

Nature made a beggar of thee ; 

God gives thee His charities ; 
As He gives He asketh of thee ; 

Illumine with His verities. 

All the world is interceding ! 

Mercies come and mercies go ! 
Listen to the pleading, pleading — 

Words are idle, vain, and slow. 



46 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 



If shelter a stranger should ask thee, 

For mercy should pray, or for food, 
Oh, turn not away in thine anger. 

It is thine own similitude 
So fashioned and so framed by nature, 

A brother with his aches and grief. 
And lit! is not a reptile crawling 

Nor thoii a worm upon the leaf. 

Wherever thou art. Oh, remember 

That other men rise above thee, 
That God in his infinite mercy 

Did not make the world all for thee. 
Beneath are the weak in the struggle. 

With souls that are patient and pure. 
Awaiting, yes, waiting forever 

For courage and strength to endure. 

Oh, what if some good deeds are wasted ! 

Mistakes are the mother of good ; 
A right intent ne'er lost its sweetness 

Because it was not understood. 
The little that Love has to give thee, 

Is all that there is in the strife ; 
The web and the woof of the sunshine 

That brightens the dreariest life. 

The soul of the world is aweary, 

Because of the sorrowing poor. 
And wrongs if they are to be righted 

Must lose but their power to allure. 
The world needs the help of the helpless, 

The helpless need strength from the strong. 
And riches serve but to make selfish ; 

It looks as if something is wrong. 

Sweet voices that sing in the valley 

And eyes that so tearfully mark 
The pageants of sin that are moving 

To vestibules solemn and dark. 
In working and singing together 
- And weeping your mercies away 
Remember that thou art the sunshine 

That lightens a perilous way. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 47 

Prof. John Clark Ridpath, of Greencastle, Indiana, the His- 
torian, and author of the new and popular " History of the World," 
commanded attention, in a profound and logical analysis of 

THE PERSISTENCY OF ETHNIC TRAITS. 

The student of history must be constantly surprised to see 
recurring, after the lapse of centuries, the personal and race pecul- 
iarities of the ancient peoples. The institutional forms of human 
society are not nearly so long-lived as are manners and customs. 
Even those great political organizations to which we give the name 
of governments are comparatively evanescent. If we take those 
that have longest survived we shall find their career to have been 
but brief compared with the epochs of geology, archaeology, or 
anthropology. A vast majority of the governments which have 
been instituted by men have not survived a century from the date 
of their founding. A few have lived longer. 

Among the kingdoms of Western Asia, Assyria held a single 
organic form from the last year of the fourteenth century B. C. to 
the forty-seventh year of the eighth century, a total of five hundred 
and forty-three years. In North eastern Africa Egypt had a con- 
tinuous existence from Menes to 525 B. C, a period a little over 
three thousand years in duration. In Europe the two conspicuous 
examples of political longevity have been Rome and England. 
The former, from the founding of the city to the overthrow of 
Romulus the Little, survived for twelve hundred and twenty-nine 
years ; the latter, from Alfred to Victoria, has reached a span of a 
little over a thousand years. Thus much for the occasional per- 
sistency of political institutions. 

The real life of man is far removed from his political form. 
Instead of being the first, the political garb is the last expression of 
his methods as a human creature. There are, however, other gar- 
ments which fit him more closely and last much longer. The 
political form of society is only a spectacular overcoat — a thing 
easily seen and easily described, but 7>ery loose and readily removed 
from the person. Men have carried into all parts of the earth into 
which they have distributed themselves the race peculiarities inher- 
ited from their ancestry, and the actual activities of mankind are 
much more ethnic in their derivation than they are civil or political. 
Indeed, I am almost willing to hazard the assertion that all the 
major jealities of human life are deduced from the ethnic side. 
They have come down from antiquity with the blood of the race, 
and find expression in a thousand ways which, taken in the aggre- 
gate, constitute history. This ethnic life of man is the indestructible 



48 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

part ; the part which is transmitted from age to age, receiving in- 
crements in different centuries and from different sources, constitut- 
ing what may be called the immortalities of human society. 

It thus happens that when we look abroad at a given race and 
attempt to determine its physiognomy, to describe its motives and 
conduct, we find an assemblage of ethnic traits struggling for ex- 
pression. The old method in history sought simply to delineate ; 
to give pictorial representation of things as they appeared to the 
eye of sense; to pamt, as if on a flat canvas, the aspect oi things. 
The new method seeks perspective. It considers the aspect only as 
the current expression of the forces which lie behind it. It lays all 
the stress upon the movement of human society, and very little on 
the visible features. In this way it happens that the scrutiny of the 
student of history is constantly fixed on what we here call ethnic 
traits; and in the consideration of these the one thing which most 
surprises his ideal and most instructs his critical faculties is the per- 
sistency of race characteristics. He perceives at a glance that they 
assert and re-assert themselves in so many forms, and constitute the 
real explanations of so great a part of human conduct, as to be in 
reality the vital body of the subject which he is to investigate. It 
is the purpose of this article to note a few examples of those ethnic 
peculiarities which, in spite of all vicissitude and all catastrophe, live 
on, rising out of the past into the present, and constituting at once 
the most invariable and the most vital part of human conduct. 

The persistency of linguistic phenomena must have attracted 
the attention of all observers. The accent and voice of the father 
are not more certainly transmitted to the child than are the accent 
and voice of the race transmitted to posterity. It is easier to over- 
throw a kingdom than to subvert an accent. It is possible to show 
that peculiar inflections of the voice, and peculiar forms of emphasis, 
have survived much more than a thousand years on the tongues of 
the descendants of some tribe by whose original instincts the pecu- 
liarities in question were devised. 

Long before Greek was Greek, in the highlands of Phrygia, 
the people — in what stage of the human evolution we scarcely 
kno\y — spoke a dialect the words of which were paroxytone ; that 
is, the accent was thrown back from the ultimate syllable. In ages 
afterward, when the old ^olic Greeks, first of the Hellenic tribes, 
came island-wise across the ^'Egean, they carried this peculiarity of 
speech into Hellas; and ever afterward the ^"I^^olian Greek persisted 
in preserving the quality of the ancestral tongue. 

Later on, among the western nations of Northern Greece — 
the Epirotes, and particularly the Illyrians, to say nothiqg of the 
Macedonians, who had the same dialectical inflections — the Greek 




PROF. JOHN CLARK RIDPATH. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 49 

accent continued to differ from the Doric and Attic Greek of the 
south. Still further on, we discover among the Aryan tribes of 
Central Italy on the west, the vanguard of the Graico-Italic race, 
mere adventurers aggregating in Latiuni, nearly all males at first, 
robbers by profession, not nearly so tearful in their sentiments as 
Father ^'Eneas was in the Virgilian fiction, those primitive Albanian 
fathers — Romans, in short. Every student of language knows 
with what assiduity the Latin tongue avoided an accent on the 
ultimate. Down to the present day, in the dialects of Albania and 
even in the Italian language itself, we may find the evidences of 
this linguistic peculiarity, which made its appearance among the 
Phrygian ancestors of the Grreco-Italic race more than fifteen hun- 
dred years before our era. 

Is it possible to intensify negation? that is, when a negative 
particle has been once thrown into a sentence, does that end the 
matter ? What shall be the effect of introducing a second negative 
into the same sentence ? Some languages have adopted the latter 
expedient. Even the discerning Greek multiplied his negatives, 
and the greater the number the stronger the negation. But for some 
reason Latin adopted the opposite plan ; that is, in Latin one nega- 
tive completes the negation. And the same is true in every tongue 
derived from the Latin stock, and in most of the languages which 
have been affected by the Latin grammar. Of the latter, English 
is the most conspicuous example. It is known to all how upon the 
Teutonic grammar of our barl)arian ancestors the Roman monks of 
St. Gregory's time and subsecpiently imposed the grammatical 
structure of Latin. While St. Patrick and his followers strove in 
Ireland to cultivate the vulgar Celtic and bring it to development 
according to its own principles, the Latin monks in England pur- 
sued exactly the opposite course, contemning Saxon and enforcing 
upon it the principles of the grammar which they had brought with 
them from the south of Europe. Now in Anglo-Saxon the Greek 
principle of doubling negativi's prevailed. Perhaps no other tongue 
has ever so intensified its negations by the addition of negative 
words and particles as did the Anglo-Saxon. 

From the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, in King Alfred's 
translation of Boethius, I quote the following extract : 

" Tha sceolde se hearpere swa sarig thaet he ne mihte on-ge-mong 
othrum mannum beon, ac teah to wuda and saet on tham muntum aegther 
ge daeges ge nihtes, weep and hearpode, thaet tha wudas bifodon, and tha ea 
stodon, and 7ian heort ;/<■ onscunode naciuw leon, tie nan hara naenm- hund, 
lie nan neat nysie na en ne diMdzn ne naenne ege io oihrum for thaere mirhte 
thaes sones." 

All the italicized words at the close of this extract are nega- 
tives ! That is, out of the last twenty-seven words no fewer than 



50 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

twelve express negation ! A current English rendering of the 
paragraph is as follows : 

"Then was the harper so sorrowful that he could not remain among 
other men, but withdrew into the woods and sat on the hills, day and night, 
weeping and harping, so that the woods thrilled, and the streams stood still, 
and the hart shunned not the lion, or the hare the hound, neither did the 
cattle know any anger or fear towards each other, for the sweetness of the 
music." 

But the real Anglo-Saxon of the extract is as follows : 

" Then [according to the story] should the harper become so sorry that 
he might not be among other men, but withdrew to woods and sat on the 
mountains both by day and night, weeping and harping, that the woods 
trembled, and the rivers stood, and no hart shunned not no lion, nor no 
hare no hound, nor no cattle knew not no anger nor no fear to other for the 
sweetness of the sound." 

Here current English requires two negatives as against twelve 
in the original ! That is to say, the principles of Latin grammar, 
enforced on the English language, have reduced the negative ele- 
ment in our speech to one-sixth of its original power ! 

Every child born with an English-speaking tongue in his mouth 
begins his linguistic career by doubling the negatives. Nature is 
strong. Nature says that two negatives are better than one ; that 
they do not amount to an affirmative. For much more than a 
thousand years the Latin grammar, imposed by the old schoolmen 
on the English language long before the incoming of the Normans, 
has been struggling with the native impulses of our ancestral speech 
— struggling in vain. For, as we have said, every child, even' in 
the arms of the most scholarly mother, in his very lispings, before 
the morning sky of thought is more than faintly dappled with the 
monosyllabic mists, shocks her artificial correctness by adopting the 
Anglo-Saxon grammar. He doubles his negatives. When two are 
not sufficient, he puts in three, or six. In domg so he bears unmis- 
takable witness to a lineage much older than the introduction of 
Christianity into the British Isles. I should not be surprised if 
another thousand years would be insufficient to obliterate from the 
brain and tongue of English-born children the disposition to 
intensify negation according to the practice of a barbarian ancestry 
whose homes were in the Hollow-lands of Northern Europe. 

American folk-speech preserves a great number of such pecu- 
liarities. Anglo-Saxon words were richer than those of any other 
speech in wiiat are called "breakings." The breaking was gen- 
erally a short ? inserted before the principal vowel in the word. 
The Anglo-Saxon word, as all the world knows, was generally a 
monosyllable. The breaking before the principal vowel or diph- 
thong gave to the words in pronunciation a peculiar j'-like effect. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 5 1 

Thus we have such words as b^on, to be ; c^ald, cold ; d^op, deep : 
^age, eye: ^orthe, earth; f<?aw, few ; g(?ard, yard: g^'ong, young; 
h^alf, half ; h^ofon, heaven : h^orte, heart, etc. These words in 
Anglo-Saxon were pronounced very nearly thus : byon, kyald, 
dyope, yahge, yorthe, fyaw, gyard, gyong, hyalf, hyofon, hyorte. 

The most casual observer will have noticed among all the folks 
the disposition to preserve this Anglo-Saxon "breaking," against all 
lexigraphic rules. Ever since the days of Johnson and Richard- 
son, the lexicographers have been trying to teach English-speaking 
people to say car ; and polite folks so pronounce it. But the dis- 
position to say kyar is almost as universal as the disposition to eat or 
sleep. Patrick Henry said, " Nothing on jw/^/i!, I tell you." What 
does h-e-a-r spell ? Is there a breaking, that is, a slight y sound in the 
word ? The people so pronounce it. The lexicographers have it 
otherwise. How careixA we must be in saying careful, and how 
many great men are unkind when they are trying to be kyind. The 
Yankees even more than the Western folk have preserved the Anglo- 
Saxon breaking. Neither Worcester's Dictionary nor Dr. Holmes's 
ridicule has been able to prevail against a subtle ethnic disposition 
which Americans have inherited from an ancestry whose language 
as a distinctive form of speech perished before the Crusades. 

Human speech is only one out of scores of indications which 
bear swift witness as to race character and descent. The peculiari- 
ties of building which the primitive races invented, or possibly 
gained from an ancestry still older than themselves, have always 
an ethnic significance. I have heard the fact cited that the birds 
and quadrupeds build according to a fixed plan — that there is no 
departure from the type which the architectural instinct of a given 
kind of creatures has provided for itself. Undoubtedly ; and the 
races of men have much of this same quality. 

It is much more difficult than we are wont to suppose to change 
the manner of structure. Show me an Aryan anywhere between 
the western foothills of Burmah and the upper waters of the Rio 
Amazonas, and I will show you a man who is able to see a house 
in a tree ; that is, he is a wood-builder, as contradistinguished from 
a mud-builder. He can be civilized — or at least refined — up to 
the point of building by brick and stone-work ; but wood is his 
forte. The trunk of the tree, with little modification or much, has 
been the delight of all the Aryan folk from the days when the first 
tribes set out from the Bactrian Highlands to do the adventure and 
thinking for the rest of mankind. 

Shem, on the other hand, does not take kindly to timber ; and 
Ham, not at all. It is believed that in all ancient Media, before 
the days when the relations between that power and Persia were 



52 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

reversed by the genius and sword of the young man Cyrus, there 
was not a single brick or slab of cut stone. Ecbatana, with its 
palace, and probably its temples, was built of wood. Chaldaea, on 
the contrary, was, architecturally considered, one vast brick ; mud, 
bitumen, solid, square, heavy structure of earthen masonry — such 
were the ideas of the architects who built for the great people out 
of whose border town Abraham started west with his clan and his 
camels. 

These building instincts are preserved to the present day in the 
descendants of the ancient peoples here referred to. I will cite a 
single circumstance, sufficiently occult in its origin and instructive 
as a fact. I refer to the position of the ground-plan of house- 
building with respect to the points of the compass. So far as my 
knowledge extends, all the Aryan nations have set their houses so 
that the sun in rising, at noonday, and on going down should look 
on the three sides of the building. We call this arrangement of the 
ground-plan "setting the house square with the world." It seems 
as natural to a man of the Aryan race to have a south and a north 
side to his house (the conditions of locality permitting it) as it is to 
have a house at all. The ancient Chaldeans and the later Babylon- 
ians in all that portion of Mesopotamia below the latitude of Hit 
and Samarah chose, under the influence of some instinct which it 
is difficult to understand, to lay the ground-plan of all their houses, 
with the four corners, instead of the sides, to the cardinal points of 
the compass. It is known that at least some of the great temples 
and palaces of Assyria beyond the Upper Tigris were constructed 
in the same manner. We may be sure that for some reason the 
Aramaic branch of the Semitic peoples preferred that the sun at 
rising should shine against the corners of their houses, and not agamst 
the sides. The point of great interest about this architectural pecu- 
liarity of a certain group of ancient peoples is, that it has persisted 
to the present day, not universally, but with sufficient distinctness 
to mark the descendants of a people who were already old when 
the Vedic hymns were still young on the tongues of the Indian 
poets. 

'The evolution of clothing is marked with many ethnic lines. 
The form and character of the garments which men and women 
have invented for the protection and adornment of their bodies is 
as much the result of race instinct as of climatic adaptation. We 
need only reflect for a moment to see that a great majority of the 
garments which have been worn by men and women have very little 
respect, or no respect at all, to the human form. In the absence of 
knowledge, the uninformed observer would be left wholly to con- 
jecture in determining the use of the larger part of the articles worn 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 53 

for clothing. This was especially true among the Eastern peoples 
and the races of anticpiity. In general, the progress of civilization 
has brought a conformity of the garment to the shape of the person. 
In the progress of humankind to the West trousers did not appear 
until the migrating nations had j)assed the highlands of Armenia. 
The Iranic Aryans, who filled up the Persian plateau, and the Indie 
races, who poured through the Hindoo-Kush into the valley of the 
Indus, were still under the primitive instincts of apparel, and to this 
day the ancient styles have been preserved in all the countries occu- 
pied by our oriental kinsfolk. 

But as the west-bound march continued, as Mesopotamia was 
passed and the ancestors of the Grreco-Italic ])eoi)les entered the 
hill-country of Cappadocia and Phrygia, certain garments were in- 
vented hitherto unknown among men. Shoes were here first intro- 
duced. The trousers were an Aryan invention. It seems a thing 
simjile enough, but the history of the evolution of this garment 
would occupy a volume, and would embrace a variety of details 
more interesting than fiction, more instructive than Plato's Dialogues. 

It was in this same region that the well-known Phrygian cap, 
which may be rightly regarded as the most chaste, simple, and 
elegant form of head-dress ever seen, was invented. The modern 
saddle and the modern method of bridling and riding the horse, as 
distinguished from the Oriental and Turanian methods, were intro- 
duced at the same time and under the same circumstances. We 
speak here of a period as much anterior to the epoch of the Trojan 
War as that event was anterior to Platiea and Salamis. From that 
day until the present the garment to which we have referred has had 
a struggle for existence, gradually gaining groundamong the western 
Aryan nations, and being adopted even by the scattered sons of 
Israel in Europe and America, but never as yet able to make a 
conquest anywhere to the east of the meridian of its origin. 

When the Gr^co-Italic peoples of Southern Europe first be- 
came accjuainted, in the pre-classical ages, with the Celtic race north 
of the Alps, they found in the civil organizations of that people 
three orders of nobility — the Druid priests, the Gaulish chieftains, 
and the Equites, or horsemen. The first attended to the religious 
duties of the State; the second were the civil rwlers, and the third 
constituted that body of cavalry with which the legions of Ca,'sar 
had to contend for the mastery of the country between the Rhine 
and the Pyrenees. The second of these noble orders, that is, the 
chiefs, wore as a national dress a kind of blanket, of striped or 
variegated cloth, thrown around the body somewhat after the man- 
ner of the Roman toga. The garment was the established style as 
early at least as the fourth century B. C. After twenty-three hun- 



54 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

dred years it is still worn by the Gaelic Highlanders of Scotland, 
and it is doubtful whether another thousand years will witness its 
extinction. 

About a year ago I was passing along the principal street of 
Paso del Norte, taking my first view of the low adobe houses, and 
my first practical lesson in Spanish as it is spoken. Most of the 
people were of the ruder, poorer class; but while I was listening to 
the enchanting talk of some draymen, as they unloaded their boxes 
of Sonora oranges, a living creature came out of a kind of bazar 
on the other side of the street, and began to walk up and down. 
His dignity was something indescribable. I do not mock at his walk 
when I say it was majestic. He had on a hat which (as I afterward 
learned from pricing those in the shop) was worth $300. But 
what caught my attention at a glance was the outer garment which 
he had thrown around his person, and which he adjusted now and 
then by giving an aristocratic movement to some of the foldings. 
It was my first sight of a Roman toga ! The man who wore it was a 
Spaniard — doubtless a Castilian. And if a Castilian, then he had 
in his blood an element of the old Celtiberian life, which belonged 
to the center of the Spanish peninsula before the days of Hannibal. 
That is, his blood was composite, a part having come with the Celtic 
race through the notches of the Pyrenees, and the other part by the 
way of the Pillars of Hercules out of Africa ; finally, from the 
Hamites in Egypt and Arabia. But my Mexican was not only 
Celtiberian; he was Latin — Roman. His haughtiness was of that 
sort. And then his color — that was Moorish. Islam had left its 
stain, not on his skin but in his blood. The Saracen was in him as 
well as the Celt, the Iberian, and the Latin stock. But his cloak 
was the Roman toga. No mistaking that. Its genealogy was as 
certain as mathematics. It was a part of that universal ethnic cal- 
culus by which the visible aspects of human life are determined in 
every part of the world. To wear such a cloak was natural to a 
descendant of the Roman race ; but has any one ever seen a com- 
fortable German or Englishman inside of a toga ? I think that the 
long white robes worn by the Druid priests of Britain were associa- 
ted with the ritual of Zoroastrainism ; and if ethnography were 
sufficiently advancfd as a science we should find that the altar- 
stones of the Druid in the center of Stonehenge, or far out in the 
gloom of the oak woods, had, somewhere in the past, an ethnic 
identity with the fire-altars of the Parsees. 

AH the principles and practices by which the races of men 
have adapted themselves to their environment have been character- 
ized by such peculiarities as can only be accounted for on the 
grounds of ethnic preference. I do not pretend to offer or suggest 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 55 

an explanation as to tvhy some primitive races have chosen one 
method and some another of gratifying their desires and perpetuat- 
ing their lives. I simply insist that far back m the tribal state in- 
stinctive dispositions appear among men and work out certain 
results in conduct which must be simply referred to ethnic prefer- 
ence. For instance, the milk-bearing animals are widely distributed 
over the earth. I do not know but what their distribution is coin- 
cident with that of the human race, but the uses which men make 
of these auxiliary creatures and of their products are as various 
and peculiar as the peoples themselves. The goat in America 
might be used for milk and cheese under circumstances most favor- 
able to plenty and profit, but there is an ethnic repugnance among 
the Aryan races to such use. The use of goats' milk in America 
seems as far off as lion-hunting or Buddhism. 

The area of certain prepared foods is coincident with ethno- 
graphic lines rather than with climatic boundaries. All the Aryans 
of Europe, with the exception of the Grteco-Italic races, came into 
the Continent out of Asia, around the Euxine, northward out of 
Armenia. The race-current which thus flowed into Europe from 
the Upper Volga contained the potency of all the Letto-Slavic, 
Teutonic, and Celtic peoples. It is possible to trace in this channel, 
from its source in Scythia to its distribution along the North Sea, 
the pathway and distribution of sour cheese as a food of man. The 
custom of making and preferring this product seems to have orig- 
inated among the Scythians, with whom it was a principal article. 
Strangely enough, it was the milk of mares which they used in its 
preparation rather than the milk of cows or goats, though they 
possessed both. In the hands of the Teutonic Aryans, the manu- 
facture was continued from cows' milk; and all of those odorous 
compounds which Dutch ingenuity has extracted from the curd have 
resulted from an ethnic appetite which is quite unaccountable to the 
majority. The pathway of pepper can be traced geographically 
and ethnically, being generally coincident, so far as the Aryans are 
concerned, with the distribution of the Latin races. It cannot be 
doubted that the Mexican and Peruvian palate of to-day is excited 
by the same condiments with which Roman bacchanalians were 
wont to provoke their appetites under the Empire. 

These things may be considered trifles, but they are rich in 
meaning. If we pass to those intellectual and moral characteristics 
which may be called ethnic we rise to a higher and much more im- 
portant plane. 

Different peoples have taken their different views of the natu- 
ral world according to ethnic lines. The Aryans have been poets 
and mythologists. The views which they have taken of nature 



56 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

and their methods of expressing the same have been identical in all 
countries and all ages into which these peoples have been distributed, 
whether in Punjaub or Nepaul, on the Iranian plateau, in the GrEeco- 
Italic peninsulas, in the dark woods or lowlands of Northern Europe, 
or in the wilds of the New World. To the Aryan mind nature has 
presented herself as a problem to be solved. The aspects of the 
visible world have attracted a curious interest and called forth a vast 
array of poetical imagery and rational speculation. It might be 
said that the most natural activity of the Aryan intellect is to follow 
the sequence of phenomena. In an unscientific age this disposition pro- 
duces mythology. In a scientific age it produces natural philosophy. 
In all ages it produces poetry. I do not know of any other respect 
in which the human mind has changed its modes of action so little 
as in the expression of its sentiments relative to the aspects and influ- 
ences of nature. It will be said, of course, that there is a great 
difference between mythology and physics. And so there is — in the 
nomenclature ; but not in the substance. It makes little difference 
by what names things are called so long as they are the same things, 
apprehended with the same vision. 

To the first Aryans, nature was, of course, as she is to all 
children, more alive than she is to the last Aryans ; and this being 
more alive constitutes the fundamental difference between mythol- 
ogy and natural science. All the rest of the difference is simply a 
linguistic mutation which may be neglected in the inquiry. I have 
been surprised to note in the Dialogues of Soc7'ates precisely such 
expressions and such views of nature as might have been given out 
yesterday by some scholar in comparative philology. In the Pluvdrus, 
for instance, occurs the following interlocution : 

Socrates. Turn this way ; let us go to the Ilissus, and sit down at some 
quiet spot. 

P/urJriis. I am fortunate in not having my sandals ; and as you never 
have any I think that we may go along the brook and cool our feet in the 
water ; this is the easiest way, and at midday and in the summer is far from 
being unpleasant. 

Socrates. Lead on, and look out for a place in which we can sit down. 
J^hicdrus. Do you see that very tall plane-tree ? 

Socrates. Certainly I do. 

PJucdrus. There is shade there, and the wind is not too strong, and 
there is grass to sit, or, if we like, to lie down. 

Socrates. Lead on, then. 

Pluedriis. Tell me, Socrates, is it not from some place here they say 
that Boreas carried away Orithyia from the Ilissus ? 

Socrates. So they say. 

Plurdrus. Should it not be from this spot ? for the waters seem so 
lovely, and pure, and transparent, and as if made for girls to play on the 
bank. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING, 57 

In what respect does this differ from Goethe, from Wordsworth, 
from Tennyson ? The young Bryant, with his harp for the first 
time in his hands, began thus : 

" To him who in the love of nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language." 

The Vedic shepherd, full two thousand years before Christ, 
gazing eastward in the early dawn, saw the morning star over the 
snow-notches of the Himalayas, and poured out his rhapsody in 
song. The sentiments of the hymn, poetical in the last degree, and 
flecked with religious emotions, were at once the epitome and the 
antitype of the prolific poetical literature which has poured from the 
heart and brain of the Aryan peoples. The strain was taken up by 
the Zendic bards and repeated on the myriad tongues of the Greek 
poets. Chaucer renewed the echoes among the twittering birds that 
made the morning vocal at old Woodstock ; and the poetry of the 
nineteenth century, in England, Germany, and America, still blends 
in its strophes the sympathies and yearnings for visible nature, and 
the awe of her mysteries, which were felt by the first men of the 
race who looked abroad on the panorama of the earth and sea and 
sky. 

Or, turning from the poetical side, in what respect does the 
conversation of Socrates and Phsdrus differ from such talk as Max 
Miiller might have with Huxley ? Whether with the poetical or the 
scientific eye the Aryan folks in all the countries which they have 
traversed have looked curiously and sympathetically on the aspects 
and processes of the visible world. So intense has been this dispo- 
sition that it has demanded the extension of the senses in both 
directions. On one side it has called into being the infinitudes of 
the telescope, and on the other the infinitudes of the microscope. 

Shem looked upon the natural world with another eye. He 
was not insensible to the majesty of the universe j but his mind 
dwelt ever on the moving Cause behind it. We can epitomize 
his view of nature, as did the psalmist, in a single clause : 

" The heavens declare the glory of God, 
And the firmament showeth his handywork." 

It was not the beauty, the majesty, the sublimity of the worlds on 
high with which he was affected. To him the universe was simply 
an expression of invisible purpose, intelligence, will. 

It has been insisted that the Aramaic peoples of the lower 
Euphrates and the Hamites of the Nile valley were the founders of 
astronomy and kindred sciences. We have been told many times 
how the Arabian Moors of Spain were the introducers of science 



58 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

into Europe. This is true and not true. If astronomy and astrol- 
ogy were convertible terms — if they expressed the same facts in 
the human evolution — we might assign the origin of astronomy to 
the Chaldi^ans and the Egyptians. But it was by no means the Imcs 
of the physical universe that those dreaming ancients sought to 
know and to formulate. It was only the lore of the stars that they 
produced. There is a great difference between a physical law and 
an astrological myth. 

History is replete with examples of great men who could not 
understand themselves, and whom others could not interpret. 
Such characters are, I believe, for the most part, the result of the 
confluence of ethnic tides. Wallenstein is a conspicuous instance. 
I am confident that could his genealogy be traced we should find in 
him a strain of Arabian blood. In his tent at night he had before 
him his astrological charts and his war-maps by turns; and he 
studied the former with more interest than the latter. Schiller has 
not solved the mystery of his character. He had the spirit of the 
ancient Chaldees; and if our knowledge of his antecedents were 
ample, it would probably be seen that one of his lines of descent 
stretches across the Mediterranean, traversing deserts, and finally 
fixing itself, perhaps, in the sands of the Arabian plain, or among 
the date-palms and alders of the Lower Euphrates. 

Like astrology, alchemy came from Shem and Ham. But 
alchemy is not chemistry. To this day it is impossible to interest 
the peoples of the East with such questions as arise out of the 
molecular constitution of matter. On the other hand, it is almost 
impossible not to interest any Aryan mind with such an inquiry. 
True, the ancient Arabic world was rich in experimentation and 
discovery ; and much of both has flowed into Western channels. 
All chemical, and I might add all physical, science is infected to a 
certain degree with alchemical and astrological influences. In all 
the drug-stores of Europe and America one may buy — indeed, 
he must buy if he buy at all — his "spirits" of camphor, "spirits" 
of nitric ether, "spirits" of turpentine. Mark the spirits. The 
drug-clerk, with his materialistic mind, sells you the spirit of turpen- 
tine" in a vial ! You have four ounces of the oil of terebinth, 
derived, perhaps, from the Abies balsamea of Canada, and a certain 
indefinite quantity of alchemy, derived from the Arabs, and repre- 
sented by the "spirit." In the middle ages the spirit was the 
principal thing in the laboratory. It was the working force in 
matter. Perhaps we might call it the Semitic name for chemical 
affinity. 

Many peculiar phenomena with which physical and intellectual 
science is perplexed in modern times are the ethnic residue of 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 59 

ancient forms and modes of mental action. Physical science has 
shown that in the evolution of animal bodies certain organs have 
become atrophied, and with this certain modes of action have 
passed away. But the disposition of the animal to act in the 
ancient manner and to use the atrophied organ is always seen 
when the ancient conditions are restored. This is true of the 
intellectual actions of men. Many of the peoples of to-day feel a 
sudden impulse to act in a primitive manner when the same is 
suggested by the revival of some circumstance from the past. The 
circumstance is generally such as has belonged to ethnic history. I 
believe that several scientific theories will have to be revised, under 
the principles here suggested. Take, for instance, the scientific 
explanation of the mirage. I seriously doubt its accuracy, or, at 
least, its completeness. 

In February last, while journeying northward through the 
Mojave Desert, in California, I had opportunity to study for some 
hours the mirage in Death Valley. This waste region lies about a 
hundred and twenty miles to the east of the line of the Southern 
Pacific Railway. I looked long and intently at the illusive images 
that hung low in the gleaming horizon. It was, in general, a lake, 
surrounded with palms and tents, and what might well be mistaken 
for shady groves and fountains. I tried faithfully to reconcile the 
phenomena with the usual explanation ; but the effort was futile. 
To begin with, the scene was, to my thinking, altogether Oriental 
in its character. The palms were not like the California palms. 
Moreover, the line of vision is here directed across the wide, waste 
region of San Bernardino and toward the desert parts of Arizona. 
I do not believe that there were any palms or water, much less tents 
and villages, in that direction. I noticed that this desert Fata 
Morgana presented no motion except a certain fluctuating and illusive 
drifting in the horizon. 

No whirring wing, no bounding foot, went by; 

No wild-fowl ruffled the mock-water lake; 
No tall reed quivered with a song or cry; 

No girl or fawn stooped down her thirst to slake. 

It appeared to be a picture rather than a dramatic action. The 
image of a village reflected into the air would be a dramatic action. 
Men would be going about the street, and animals would enliven 
the scene. 

What, then, can all this be ? I do not deny the spectral theory 
which physics has suggested in explanation ; but it seems to me 
insufficient, and possibly erroneous in toto. Is it not possible that 
the mirage, after all, is a subjective phenomenon, at least in part? 
Hunger and thirst always produce delirium. He who dies of starv- 



6o WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

ation sees, in his last hours, tables of rich viands and golden fruits, 
more than heart could desire. The vision builds for itself the con- 
comitant circumstances of feasting. Trees and flowers and dining- 
halls are seen, even until the eyes glaze apace and the senses close 
forever. So, also, of the delirium of thirst. Invariably he who 
famishes for water, or, indeed, suffers much for it, will become 
delirious, and will see a veritable mirage. The lake, the fountain, 
all things that gush with living water, will come into his vision. 
The associated circumstances will also arise on his swimming sight. 
Generally the hallucination takes the form of an oasis. In no other 
regions has there been such suffering from hunger and thirst as in the 
desert or half-desert countries. Is it not possible that the so-called 
mirage is a transmitted delirium? Would there not be — is there 
not — in the mind a susceptibility to certain surroundings out of 
which a given form of suffering would arise, and has arisen in the 
past? I have known instances in which aged people, riding far on 
railway trains and suffering from hunger, have seen through the car 
windows a mirage for hours — this in countries where such phe- 
nomena are unknown to people in full blood and health. Why 
should not certain landscapes so forcibly and yet unconsciously 
impress us with the possibility — even the nearness — of perishing 
of hunger and thirst as to awaken in our sensorium the transmitted 
sensations of that which our ancestry has actually suffered under 
like conditions ? If so, may it not be that the lines of our ethnic 
descent reach into regions where delirium from hunger and thirst 
has been so common a fact as to make us sensitive to those 
physical conditions out of which the original phenomena arose ? 

These views are put forth tentatively. I suspect that northern 
nations are not, on the whole, so sensitive to mirage as those whose 
ancestors have been much exposed to the hardships and terrors of 
the desert. I suggest that it is worth the attention of scientists to 
re-examine the phenomena here referred to, not in the light of 
theory, but in the light of fact; more particularly, that some com- 
pany of good observers viewing the mirage under the same condi- 
tions compare carefully the things which they respectively see, noting 
accurately whether the spectra coincide, or whether each observer 
sees a mirage of his own. 

Will some one immediately say that the mirage of the sea 
consists of ships hung in mid-air, etc., and that therefore the vision 
is not subjective ? Bear in mind, however, that those who perish or 
suffer at sea from hunger and thirst do not have the delirium of the 
oasis; for the oasis, the palms, the fountains, the heaped-up viands 
are not the things which the sufferers hope for, not the things on 
which their swimming senses are fixed. The coming of the ship is 



FOURTH ANNUAL MERIINC. 6 1 

to them the one blessed circumstance that can save ; and the deli- 
rium takes the form of the desire. Seeing ships at sea is rather a 
l)roof than a disproof of the subjective theory of mirage. If towns 
and hamlets and sheep and oxen were seen in the sea-vision, it would 
confute rather than establish the view which I here present. Is 
not, then, the mirage of the tlesert, at least in part, the remaining 
figments of an ethnic delirium which has been transmitted from the 
actual delirium of the East? 

All thoughtful persons have remarked the ethnological relations 
of religious thought. While we should by no means adopt the 
vagary called Semitic monotheism, we may very properly admit the 
extreme tenacity with which Shem has held to the belief in one God, 
and abhorred polytheism and mythology. Under the best interpre- 
tations of the ancient systems of thought, it is now seen that the 
original concept of the Aryan mind was also monotheistic. More 
properly speaking, the original faith of the Aryan race was Kathe- 
notheism ; that is, a belief in many powers, under the supremacy 
of one. Dyaus Pitar of the Indie Aryans was the Supreme Being, 
but not the only deity. In the evolution of the Aryan races the 
original belief degenerated into polytheism. When Paul went to 
Europe with the new faith, he transplanted into Western Arya that 
stern and lofty monotheism which has struggled with the ethnic 
dispositions of the Indo-European race to the present day. The 
poetic, cause-seeking, law-seeking disposition of the Aryan ])eoples 
has risen with difficulty to the sublime concept of unity and univer- 
sality. 

The breaking away of Ishmael by his refusal to accept Chris- 
tianity was the result of an ethnic peculiarity. The vehemence 
with which Islam proclaims the oneness and indivisibility of the 
Most High, and the frequent expressions in the Koran of abhor- 
rence at the idea of a Son of God, are clear evidences of the intense 
monotheistic faith of the southern Semites. It is against this old 
ethnic instinct that Christianity has still to make its way in all the 
countries which have fallen under the influence of the Prophet. 

We cannot pursue these general views, but may pause to notice 
in the west of Europe the persistency of an ethnic characteristic 
among the Irish Celts. It was into Ireland that Druidism retreated 
before the sword of Rome. It was there that the ancient system 
was found intrenched in its last fortifications. In dealing with the 
(}uestion St. Patrick and his followers had to pursue a method very 
different from that adopted by St. Gregory in the conversion of the 
Saxon pagans in Britain. The Celts held to their Druidical super- 
stitions with much more tenacity than did the Saxons to their North- 
ern paganism. The Druidical forms of worship would not yield to 



62 ■ WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

the Christian forms proposed by the saint and his followers The 
latter were obliged, just as Rome has been obliged in many coun- 
tries, to accept the garment of the old system in the hope of a new 
body and a new spirit. 

At the time of which we speak the lore of Druidism was pre- 
served in the poems composed and sung by the Irish Fill, or Bards. 
The Fili were one of the three orders of Druidical officers. St. 
Patrick accepted many of the Druid hymns, and others were com- 
posed in the same spirit and incorporated in the Christian songs and 
ritual. There thus arose in Ireland the system which has been desig- 
nated as Neo-Druidism. It was Christianity in the garb of the 
ancient Druidical faith. The old ethnic forces of the Celtic race 
were thus permitted to enter into union with the new evangelism. 
It might almost be said that Druidism has never been abolished in 
Ireland. The stream of the ancient superstition flowed as a tribu- 
tary into the new river of religious thought, and all the waters be- 
low the confluence, even to the present day, have been tinged with 
the religious sentiments of the Celtic race as it was at the time of 
its prehistoric ascendency in Gaul and the British Islands. The 
stubborn Catholicism of modern Ireland is to be explained, in part 
at least, by the ethnic constitution of the people, and in particular 
by the Druidical element which it received from the ancient Celtic 
priesthood. 

Mr. W. W. Pfrimmer gave "A Study in Dialect" in 

"DREAMS OF INGIN CRICK. " 

Pears like I jest can't forget, 
An' I keep a thinkin' yet, 
Till I'm mighty nigh homesick 
Fer old times on Ingin Crick. 
Thought about it till it seems 
I go back there in my dreams — 
Turn the years back till I stand 
With my straw hat in my hand. 
An' my pants rolled to my knees. 
Underneath the locus' trees, 
Er lay there, as I ust to do, 
An' watch the sunshine filter through; 
Er put ofif down the Crick until 
I bring up at Bruce's mill, 
Wade the Crick below the dam, 
An' wander on until I am 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETINC. 63 

Ez hungry ez a boy kin be, 

At Uncle Eli's sarvice tree. 

Go back through the sugar camp, 

Wade the Crick agin an' tramp 

Through the bottom lands, an' climb 

The hill clost on to supper-time. 

See gran'pap a settin' there. 

In the old, split-bottom chair. 

On the porch, an' by his side, 

Gran'ma knittin', satisfied. 

Strange how nachrel dreams kin be! 

Dreams 'ats built o' memory — 

'Y I 've laid in our old loft 

An' huern the rain draps patter soft 

Like on the roof clost to my head. 

An' me a layin' there in bed, — 

An' I 've drunk frum our old well, 

An' ben in huerin' o' the bell, 

Our old bell cow ust to wear, 

Ever sence we moved frum there. 

Done it all in dreams, ye know. 

Still, I wisht 'at I could go 

Back there wide awake onst more. 

An' stand inside the school-house door. 

An' see the schollars 'at I knowed. 

Just as they wuz, before they growed 

To men an' women ; like to see 

The old school as it ust to be. 

Give the best hoss on the place 

Per a glimpse o' jest one face, 

Do my eye sight good to-night 

To ^ee her stand up to recite 

Her readin' or her rithmitic. 

Sweetest girl on Ingin Crick! 

But she's growed up too, an' she 

Likely never thinks o' me. 

Think ef I could go back now 

I 'd climb up in the old hay mow, 

An' lay down on the hay, an" rest. 

Don't know which ud be the best, 

That er fulin' through the wood 

A huntin' paw paws, 'wisht I could! 



64 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Jacob P. Dunn, Jr., State Librarian of Indiana, and author 
of "Indiana" in the "American Commonwealth Series," and 
other works, contributed for discussion a paper upon 

"TOWNSHIP LIBRARIES." 

It is my desire to interest this organization in the work of re- 
organizing and rehabilitating the township libraries of Indiana. 
My aim is not so much to secure formal action of the Association, 
though that might be beneficial, as to enlist the active sympathies 
of the members in their individual capacities. No class of persons 
is more directly interested in this movement than the members of 
this Association. Not that it would certainly extend the market 
for the publications of such of you as have published books, 
though of course it might do so ; but that it must necessarily extend 
the culture, the refinement, the love of literature, and the appre- 
ciation of literary merit for its worth, without regard to the name 
attached to it, which are the essential conditions for the life and 
growth of literary aspirants. I am well satisfied that many literary 
productions have passed unnoticed in this State, which if they had 
been produced in Boston or New York, would have at once given 
the authors standing and recognition as persons of literary merit. 
If I be correct in this, and no doubt most of you have had the 
same thought, it will easily be perceived that the difference is due 
to the different literary atmospheres of the places. If a musician 
desires to produce an artistic musical work he naturally goes to 
some place where there is a general taste for music — where 'it is 
understood and appreciated. Writers by a process of involuntary 
reasoning arrive at the same conclusion, and therefore we hear a 
great deal about a desire to "break into the Eastern magazines." 
The difficulty of accomplishing this has led to a desire for independ- 
ence among Western writers, but of all the projects that have been 
suggested for this, I have heard of none that is not superficial in 
its character and certain of failure. 

The only way to cure a disease is to go to the roots of it. If 
you want a field for literary work here, you must have a literary 
atmosphere here. You may start magazines and write articles about 
the merits of Western writers till you wear yourselves out, and no 
effect will be produced until appreciative readers are secured in the 
general public. How will you acquire such a public ? I answer, 
educate — educate — educate. It is to your interest to stimulate 
and push forward education of all kinds, but no education will be 
of so much service to you as library education ; for that it is which 
takes people beyond school work and puts them into your field — 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 65 

which makes them capable of appreciating beauty of thought and 
of expression — which makes them love and respect those who can 
satisfy this literary taste. The thing is axiomatic. From whom do 
you receive individual appreciation, from people who read, or from 
people who do not read ? Who understand you ? Who are your 
friends ? There can be but one answer, and, when you have given 
it, let me further ask you how can you expect general appreciation 
so long as the majority of people do not read ? But how can they 
be induced to read ? Give them the opportunity and they will 
need no inducing. Go out through this State, as you may anywhere, 
■and find people poring for hours over an old newspaper, and then 
talk about inducing them to read. It is absurd. Put something 
worth reading within their reach and there will be no trouble about 
the reading. And once the reading habit is formed, they are yours. 

No doubt a number of the members of this Association live at 
points where public libraries are not readily accessible. To such 
there is the added incentive of gratifying their own taste for books. 
Even if one is able to supply himself with what he wants for 
ordinary reading, there are always books of reference that he is 
liable to want at any time, and which persons of ordinary means 
cannot indulge in. For numerous reasons, literary people get more 
benefit from public libraries than other classes of people. They 
ought to be the leaders in the movement for securing and maintain- 
ing them for their own sakes, as well as the interests of others. I 
have very little confidence in a love for literature which does not 
beget a desire to have others share in the pleasure and profit so 
easily obtained by reading good books. 

It is a singular fact that the proposition to improve the town- 
ship libraries of this State is almost invariably met with the objection 
that the libraries are worthless; that the books are in bad condition, 
and many of them are lost ; that the township trustees take no care 
of the libraries ; and that they are of no practical use to any one. 
Unquestionably, these statements are correct, but it certainly is 
illogical, to say the least, to urge the existence of an evil as a reason 
why that evil should not be corrected. To a well-balanced mind, 
the existence of an evil is the essential reason for correcting the evil. 

On the other hand, it is fairly incumbent on those who advo- 
cate reform in this matter to show why the present township library 
system is a failure, and how it may be remedied. This can easily 
be done by briefly reviewing the history of these libraries. The 
law under which they originated was a part of the school* law of 
1852. (Rev. Stats. 1852, Vol. i, p. 456.) It provided for a tax of 
a quarter of a mill on the dollar, or twenty-five cents on one 
thousand dollars, and a poll tax of twenty-five cents, the proceeds 



66 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

of which were to be devoted exclusively to the purchase of town- 
ship libraries. By the provisions of the law this tax was to be 
collected for two years only. By November i, 1854, $171,319.07 
had been collected from this tax, and $147,222 expended for books. 
The first imperfection of the law was then manifested. 

It required the purchase of complete libraries ; but instead of 
providing one for each township, it directed that ten libraries should 
be furnished to each county having more than 15,000 inhabitants, 
eight libraries to counties having from 10,000 to 15,000 inhabitants, 
and six libraries to counties having less than 10,000 inhabitants; 
and the libraries so received were to be divided equitably among 
the townships by the county commissioners. The result was that 
there were 690 libraries to be divided among 938 townships, and 
the basis of distribution to counties was so unequal that there were 
over 150 townships that received less than full libraries, each of 
which had more inhabitants than one entire county that received 
six libraries. What was worse, as there were very few counties in 
which the number of libraries received corresponded exactly with 
the number of townships, the completeness that had been aimed at 
in the purchase was at once destroyed by the division of almost all 
the libraries, and in some instances that division was made with 
such stern impartiality that sets of books were divided, part of the 
volumes being sent to one township and part to another. This 
process of division has since been continued, as the townships 
increased to their present number of 1012, and the libraries affected 
have decreased proportionately in value. 

Notwithstanding this defect, which could, of course, easily be 
remedied by applying the tax paid in each township exclusively for 
the library of that township, the libraries were very popular and very 
successful for several years. By the revised school law of 1855 
(Laws 1855, p. 177) the defect as to distribution was cured and the 
tax continued for another year. In his report of 1856, Caleb Mills, 
Superintendent of Public Instruction, declared that an examination 
of the statistical showing of the libraries would 

"Convince the most skeptical that a one-quarter of a mill property and 
a twenty-five cents poll tax never accomplished so much for education in 
any other way." 

The total amount raised by this three-years taxation was 
$273,000, or about $290 to each township; the average number of 
volumes received was about 300, the exact number varying with 
the population. The official reports of the use of the libraries 
made at the time, many of which are set forth in the Superintend- 
ent's Report of 1857, fully justify Mr. Mills' statement that the 
system had already "accomplished results equal to the most 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 67 

sanguine expectations of its friends, and fully redeemed their 
pledges in its behalf." He adds : 

"The reports from many townships will show that the number of 
books taken out, in twelve consecutive months, is equal to from one to 
twenty times the entire number in the library, a case perhaps without a 
parallel in the history of popular reading." 

But it is not necessary to go to statistics to prove the usefulness 
of those books. Wherever you find a well-informed man who lived 
in Indiana from 1855 to i860, you always find a man who patron- 
ized the township libraries, and he will tell you that he profited 
much by them. Make the inquiry for your own satisfaction. I 
have tried it repeatedly, and never yet failed. 

Now, why did not this condition continue? Before the novelty 
of the libraries had fairly worn off, the civil war came on, and the 
whole attention of the people was turned to it ; and from the new 
conditions created by it there was rapidly developed a nation living 
in a feverish, abnormal state of activity. There was little thought 
of the future, and less of the past. Everything was absorbed in 
the present. This habit of life is not consistent with research and 
reflection, and after five years of it the people were much less able 
than before to appreciate the benefits of quiet mental development. 
We were left at the close of the war a nation of business men, as 
we had never been before. The activity that had become a 
necessity in living during those five years was transferred to the 
ordinary pursuits of life, and we passed into an era of enterprise, 
of speculation, of vast projects, such as had never been seen before, 
and will not probably soon be seen again. 

Meanwhile, however, the libraries were not wholly forgotten. 
Some one remembered their benefits and realized that they could 
not continue beneficial without continuing support; and in 1865 a 
law was passed providing for a tax of one-tenth of a mill on the 
dollar, or one cent on one hundred dollars, for their support. 
(Acts of 1865, p. 31.) Small as this tax was, it would have gone 
far toward satisfying the public needs, and by this time would have 
built up very respectable libraries in all the townships, but it was not 
destined to continue. The interest in the libraries was not general, 
and worst of all, they were not appreciated in the place that should 
have been their stronghold. Mr. Hoss, then Superintendent of 
Public Instruction, recommended that the fund raised for the town- 
ship libraries, amounting to about $50,000, be diverted to the 
erection of the Normal School at Terre Haute (Report of 1866, p. 
42), and obtained his desire. A law to that effect was passed by 
the next legislature, approved on March 8, 1867 (Laws of 1867, p. 
177), and on the next day a law was approved repealing the tax 
entirely. 



68 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Left thus without any support whatever, the Hbraries were of 
necessity doomed to continual deterioration. No new books could 
be added except by donation. When a book wore out it could not 
be replaced. If the binding came off it could not be re-bound. 
Then, aside from actual deterioration, a public library is always on 
the retrograde in usefulness if it be not growing. People who wish 
to read finish such books as they care for, and then, having no 
further use for the library, take no further interest in it. It gradu- 
ally drops out of sight. What difference does it make if the township 
trustee, who is burdened with the care of the library, boxes it up 
and stores it in his cellar ? What, even if he loan the books to his 
friends and make no pretension of seeing that they are returned ? 
Who cares ? No one uses the library. In fact, a majority of the 
people do not know there is any. That is the state of the public 
mind at present, and has been for a number of years past; and 
under it the libraries have steadily advanced in disintegration and 
ruin. They have died, or rather, are dying, of starvation and 
neglect. But this furnishes no argument against the usefulness of 
township libraries. It merely demonstrates that our system is 
defective ; and the reasonable action to be taken is not the aban- 
donment of the libraries, but the amendment of the system. 

The particulars of amendment desirable should, of course, 
receive the most careful consideration ; but to my mind the bill 
presented for the purpose at the last session of the Legislature out- 
lines the desirable course in the more important matters, as follows : 

I. The levying of a continuing tax for the support and increase of the 
libraries. The tax proposed was one-fifth of a mill on the dollar, or twenty 
cents on one thousand dollars. A majority of the tax-payers of Indiana 
pay taxes on less than that amount, and therefore twenty cents a year would 
be the maximum of expense to a majority of our citizens. At the same time 
this would raise in the State a total of $160,000, or an average of $160 to the 
township. In some townships the amount would be considerably greater, 
and in some much less; but as the money raised in each township is to be 
expended for the library in that township, the result would be exactly what is 
needed, i. e., the more populous and wealthier the township, the better the 
library. 

If. In case there is a town of over one hundred inhabitants in a town- 
ship, the library is to be located at the largest of such towns. This will 
usually secure the easiest access to the greatest number of readers. In case 
there is no town of that size, the county commissioners are empowered to 
locate it at a smaller village or postoffice, if public convenience will thereby 
be advanced; otherwise the library is to be kept at the schoolhouse most 
centrally and conveniently located for general access. 

III. The employment of a librarian. The funds, of course, will be 
limited, but there will be little difficulty in finding in each township some 
young person who would gladly devote one day in the week to the care of a 
library, for fifty dollars a year. Such persons would be interested in books, 
the use of the library being always an object with them, and better care 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 69 

would be taken of the libraries. It is useless to expect township trustees to 
give proper care to libraries. They are not selected on account of their 
knowledge of such matters, and usually cannot afford the time that is 
necessary. 

IV. The supervision of the libraries by the county superintendents of 
public instruction, including semi-annual inspection of the libraries, and 
reports to the State Superintendent. This connects the library system 
closely to the school system, and will do much toward promoting the harmo- 
nious advancement of the two. Our educators have already waked up to the 
importance of the libraries as an adjunct to school work. Their reading 
circle work has also brought home to them the desirability of public libraries 
in which the reading-circle books may be found. In consequence, recom- 
mendations of an improvement of the township libraries have already been 
made by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and by committees from 
the State Teachers' Association. 

These are the principal features of the proposed law. The 
remainder are matters of detail in connection with these changes, 
and of prevention of conflict w-ith libraries already established — 
especially those of cities which wish separate and exclusive libraries. 
It is believed that they are all practical. No one has yet been able 
to point out anything impracticable in them; and criticism of that 
nature is coveted, for the prime object is to get the best law possible. 
The principal objection in the Legislature has been and will be the 
increase of taxation. That is always a bugbear, and very often it 
would be well if it were more of one ; but in this case there can be 
no question that the tax would be popular. I know of one county at 
present in which a township library tax is being levied and collected 
in every township, under a supposed authority of law, but in reality 
without lawful authority of any kind, and without objection. The 
County Superintendent recently informed me that some of the 
trustees objected to making the levy at first, but afterwards, on 
finding that the people were in favor of it, they proceeded. There 
is a waking interest in the township library question, in several 
localities. The most noteworthy of recent date is at Richmond, 
where the Morrisson library and several other collections have been 
turned over to the township of Wayne, and the township library 
system has been re-inaugurated in good style, with some 15,000 
volumes for a beginning. This library may have the aid of a con- 
tinuing tax, as our law provides that when a township library has 
been started by j)rivate donation to the extent of $1,000 or upwards, 
a tenth of a mill tax may be levied for its supjjort. 

It is especially desirable that some action should be taken in 
regard to the township libraries at as early a date as possible, in 
order to save what remains of the old libraries. As nearly as 
can be estimated from the published rej)orts of the State Superin- 
tendent of Public Instruction, and from a rather careful investi- 
gation made during the past two years, there are about 100,000 



70 



WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 



volumes still remaining in serviceable condition. Taken by them- 
selves, these books would be of little use, but they will form 
nuclei for libraries, and as usually they are works of a solid char- 
acter, will add materially to their value. The books which had the 
greatest use, and consequently those which commonly wore out or 
disappeared, were novels and books of a popular character. The 
histories, scientific works, and works of reference, remained more 
closely on the shelves. Broken sets can be filled with comparative" 
cheapness, as the breaks in a thousand libraries are usual supple- 
mentary to an extent that will cause them, as an entirety, to absorb 
complete sets. With these considerations in view, it will readily be 
seen that what is on hand already will prove a feature of importance 
in the township library project. 

I trust that you have all now arrived at a state of mind when 
you are asking, mentally, what can we do to forward the township 
library system ? You can do a great deal. In the first place you 
can talk — at least some of you can, and my observation has been 
that literary people were usually gifted in that way. You go out 
from here to the various localities in which you reside, where you 
are personally known, and where your opinions in literary matters 
are respected. Talk to your neighbors and friends. See if any of 
them can offer any legitimate reason why Indiana should be behind 
other States in the matter of public libraries. See if they can give 
any reason why every Hoosier child that hungers for knowledge 
should not be given access to good reading matter free of cost ? 
See if you can find anyone who will object to a tax of twenty cents 
on a thousand dollars for keeping up these libraries. If your voice 
becomes weak, or you feel that you can reach further with a pen, 
write. All of you have access to newspaper columns, and are 
on friendly terms with editors. Enlist the press in the war. There 
is no greater agency for public education. 

I ask you to consider this subject maturely and seriously. 
You have personal interests in it ; but beyond that, you have all 
that enlightened state-pride can give to urge you forward. I have 
no more at stake than any of you ; but with all her eccentricities I 
love 'Indiana, and I would, with deep pleasure, see her come for- 
ward to the front ranks of her sister States in every work of pro- 
gress and enlightenment. She is moving in that direction, and 
when the day shall come when this particular step of reform is 
taken, as come it certainly will, I trust that the impartial historian 
will be able to record that the Western Association of Writers was a 
powerful factor in obtaining it. 

Mr. George B. Cardwill endorsed the position of Mr. Dunn, 
as expressed in the paper, and gave a brief history of the establish- 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 7 1 

ment of the library at New Albany, Indiana. Mrs. D. M. Jordan, 
Prof. J. C. Ridpath, Mrs. M. S. Brooks, and Judge T. B. Redding 
also participated in the discussion. 

Mr. Franklin E. Denton revealed the master-touch in the rare 
combination of strong thought and deep feeling expressed in 

"AN AUTUMN DAY." 

If the bright soul of Shelley could be wrought 

Into a day, it would be such as this, 

Fair as e'er burst the night's starred chrysalis, 

The only perfect day the year has brought. 

With "peace that passeth understanding" fraught, 

Like an old mystic lost amid his dreams, 

Bathed in October's introspective beams 

The world seems builded of the stuff of thought. 

But I am dumb! Conceptions words forsake 

Do heave and quiver on the heart's deep feeling. 

Like water-lily leaves upon a lake. 

O'er whose blue meadows summer winds are stealing! 

I starve, like Tantalus; almost in reach 

Of the rich banquet of the gift of speech! 



President Parker read a letter written by Mrs. Mary J. Tucker, 
of Greensburg, Indiana, concerning her daughter, Mary Louisa 
Chitwood, whose harp of song was long since unstrung, but the 
memory of whose genius still lives, as evidenced in 

"THE TWO EDENS," 
read by L. May Wheeler. 

I am dreaming, dreaming of Eden, 

E'er the serpent entered in. 
And over the brows of the tempted 

Fastened his fangs of sin ; 
When the flowers that grew in the garden 

With shadowless bloom were bright, 
And no broken urn of the lily 

Enfolded the dews of night 



72 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

O ! fair and beautiful Eden, 

O, perfect and sinless love ! 
When light, like a prism of glory. 

Circled the earth from above. 
And a sweet rejoicing anthem 

Was sung by the earth to the sun, 
As swift through the realms of azure 

She swept in her glory on. 

And the flash winds played a chorus 
Of love to the blue eyed waves, 

E'er they bore the echoes of sobbing 
O'er the muffled digging of graves. 

When afar in the quiet valley, 
'Neath the bloom of the thornless rose. 

The lion and lamb together 
Lay down in sweet repose. 

When the fawn and spotted leopard, 

The wolf and young gazelle. 
Came close to the sound of singing. 

As Eve's voice rose and fell ; 
And the beasts that lived in the jungles. 

And the birds that flew in the air 
Fled not at the footsteps of Adam, 

In Eden e'er sin was there. 

But I turn from the night of darkness. 
The time of the cross and thorn. 

The night of the earthquake mutter, 
That followed when sin was born. 



I am dreaming, dreaming of Eden, 

That Eden of love, that lies 
Far over the shadowy waters. 

That quiet land of the skies ; 
Where, over the walls of pure jasper. 

No serpent can enter in, 
And o'er the Eternal City 

Hangeth no cloud of sin. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 73 

When the loved ones o'er whose bosoms 

The sods of earth have lain, 
Will come to our fond embraces 

And gladden our hearts again. 
Oh fairest and beautiful Eden, 

Of endless, eternal rest, 
Of all the sweet dreams that e'er thrill me 

This glorious one is the best. 

When the heart within is pulsating 

With longings, and hopes, and fears, 
When the eyes that look to the starland 

Are misty and dim with tears. 
There cometh the voice of an angel, 

A syllable sweet of love, 
With a thought and a hope of Eden 

Remaining for us above. 



Mary E. Cardwill read the following letters: 

LETTER FROM OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Beverly Farms, Mass., June 17, 1889. 

Benj. S. Parker, President Western Association of Writers, New 
Castle, Ind. 

Aly Dear Sii- : — I thank you cordially for your kind note and invita- 
tion. I wish I could meet all my distant friends face to face, but I can only 
send them my grateful acknowledgments and my best wishes. Believe me 

Very truly yours, 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

LETTER FROM W. D. GALLAOHER. 

Brook Street, 1883, Louisville, Ky., June 11, li^89. 

Dear Sir: — It was with much pleasure that I received the inclosures 
which you sent me relative to the " Fourth Annual Reunion of the Western 
Association of Writers, " and it is with equal regret I have to inform you of 
my inability to attend that meeting, which, I have no doubt, will be one of 
great interest and much value. ****** 

At some future " Reunion " I hope to be able to meet with the " Western 



74 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Association," and enjoy the personal acquaintance of its members, as well 
as participate in their literary doings. Extend my sincere regards to the 
Association, and believe me, 

I am very sincerely yours, 

W. D. Gallagher. 
B. S. Parker, President of the Association, 
New Castle, Indiana. 



President Parker extended comradic greeting from Mr. D. L. 
Paine, of Indianapolis, and read the following characteristic letter : 

LETTER FROM D. L. PAINE. 

Indianapolis, July 8, 1889. 

Dear Ben: — Herewith I send you the little poem " Coronado," as 
promised. It is faulty, but is the best I can do under the circumstances. 

* » * * I should delight to be with you. Give my love to 

all the boys, old and young. I still consider myself one of them, and at 

the head of the list, being in the dish usually first mentioned in the bill of 

fare. Truly yours, 

D. L. Paine. 

"CORONADO." * 

The journey had been long and wearisome. 
The mountains and the desert were o'er past 
And lay in purple distance ; and at last 

The clamor, and the city's busy hum. 

The jasper sea sang its unending songs, 
And in it as a burning plummet cast. 
The sun's great fiery orb was drooping fast 

And only twilight brief the day prolongs. 

I asked my guide : " When will the journey end, 
And when will rest and love again be found ? " 
He, smiling, pointed to enchanted ground 

Which, glorified in light, seemed to descend. 



-Coronado, in Mexican, signifies a crown, and is the name given to the long, narrow 
peninsula which separates the Kay of San Diego from the Pacific Ocean. The distance 
around the Ijay to the considerable body of land which terminates the peninsula is many 
miles, but across is only half a mile. In that low latitude the sun drops perpendicularly into 
the sea, and darkness supervenes with scarce any twilight. For the rest, the poem tells its 
own story. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 75 

The light-house burned afar, the nigh-spent day 

Drowsed on the ocean and its eyelids fell ; 

Noise seemed the passing echo of a bell. 
He softly said : " Only Across the Bay." 

And now again I wait. The twilight gray 

Again enfolds me, and the prospect fades ; 

I ask "How far ?" and through the gathering shades 
I hear the words: "Only Across the Bay." 



Mary Hartwell Catherwood presented the following 

RESOLUTION : 

Resolved. That the greetings of the Fourth Annual Convention of the 
Western Association of Writers be incorporated in a message of respect and 
fraternal sympathy to Mr. D. L. Paine, of Indianapolis, and that it be 
signed by a committee of four appointed by the Chair. 

Mr. Clarence E. Hough moved the adoption of the resolution 
as read. 

Mrs. M. L. Andrews seconded the motion. 

Prof. J. C. Ridpath, Dr. Rachel Swain, and Mrs. D. M. Jor- 
dan suggested the addition of the names of Prof. W. H. Venable, 
Mrs. Sarah T. Bolton, and Hon. Henry Howe, respectively. 

Mrs. Catherwood accepted the suggestion, and the hames be- 
came a part of the original resolution. 

Prof. J. C. Ridpath moved that the resolution be wired to 
Mr. D. L. Paine, Mrs. Sarah T. Bolton, Prof. W. H. Venable, and 
Hon. Henry Howe, and that the committee be appointed to do 
this. 

Judge C. F. McNutt offered a second. 

It was unanimously carried, and the following committee ap- 
pointed : 

Mary Hartwell Catherwood, James Whitcomb Riley, Judge Cyrus F. 
McNutt, and Dr H W Taylor. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 77 

President Parker introduced a 

"general discussion" 

upon "The Four Greatest English Novels." 

Mary Hartwell Catherwood, J. P. Dunn, Jr., Mrs. Angeline 
Teal, Mrs. D. M. Jordan, Prof. J. C. Ridpath, Mrs. M. L. An- 
drews, Judge C. F. McNutt, and Dr. H. W. Taylor contributed to 
making this one of the pleasantest features of the day. 



President Parker explained the By-law of the Constitution of 
the Association relative to eligibility and fee for membership, for the 
benefit of those desiring to become members. 

Wm. Dudley Foulke, the Treasurer of the Association, being 
absent, Mr. W. W. Pfrimmer was made Treasurer />/-<; Z^;;/. 

Mr. W. W. Pfrimmer responded to the request of Mrs. Metcalf 
Beck to repeat his recitation, "The Dream of Injin Crick." 

Hon. Hiram S. Biggs, the President of the " Warsaw Summer 
Resort Association," extended the freedom of the Park, the Lake, 
and the row boats, and the free use of the "Steamer," with the 
assurance of a "trusty pilot at the helm." [Applause.] 

Convention adjourned. 



EVENING SESSION, 
First Presbyterian Church, 

WARSAW. 

The Third Session of the first day of the Convention was held 
at the First Presbyterian Church in the City, opening at 8 o'clock. 
A large audience of the citizens of Warsaw was in attendance. 

The exercises were made especially pleasing by the interspersion 
of excellent music and singing by Mrs. M. E. Moran, Mr. and 
Mrs. Frank Hetrick, Mrs. J. D. Widaman, Mrs. Merlin Funk, and 
Mr. Charles P. Downs. 



78 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

The address of the evening was presented by Judge Cyrus F. 
McNutt, of Terre Haute, Indiana, upon 

THE PRESENT VOGUE IN FICTION. 

He said : 

Rightly speaking, there is no "present vogue in fiction." The 
conditions are nebulous, so to speak. In the efforts of its apostles 
to establish the gospel of realism in fiction, they have been more suc- 
cessful at ^(:'struction than ff/zstruction. They have succeeded, to 
a degree, in rendering the old forms unfashionable, without having 
quite established any new fashion ; and so, have brought about a 
state of chaos. It may be — and, no doubt, will be claimed — that 
what appears to be chaotic, is really formative or transitional. How- 
ever this may be, I venture to say again, there is no present vogue in 
fiction; using the word vogue in its sense of "prevailing fashion." 

And yet„ for argument's sake, it may be conceded that there is 
a vogue, and for convenience of terminology, I shall call that vogue 
"Realism." 

But let it be understood that the observations which follow are 
made, entirely, from the point of view of the layman, who has been 
a reader of current fiction, within comparatively narrow limits, 
only ; and who, therefore, professes no higher vocation to discourse 
of it than that enjoyed by any other fairly thoughtful reader. In 
short, I disclaim the right to speak critically. Indeed, the functions 
of the professional critic seem to be mysterious functions, to be 
exercised, at some hidden altar, within that pe?ietralia, called his 
sanctum ; where, shutting himself in, and the rest of the world out, 
he is able to speak with tongues, and to prophesy. 

Not from thence, but from the ranks of those who have read 
the edicts issuing thence, and who, despite these, still have opinions 
of their own, I come to speak this word. 

Indeed, it may be fairly doubted if the judgment of the disin- 
terested layman, who reads the book he buys — or more often bor- 
rows — is not a better prophesy, and a truer, of the future of a work 
of fiction, than is that of this same high priest, speaking from his 
inner sanctum. 

Nevertheless, is it true that the critic can make the fashion in 
fiction, as surely as could the demimonde, in frocks, not a very long 
time ago. 

And is there much room to doubt that the critic, speaking per- 
sistently, month after month, from his high place in the pages of two 
or three leading American magazines, has succeeded to the degree 
that success has been attained in establishing as the fashion in fie- 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETIN(7. 79 

tion, what is known as realism ? and that, too, largely apart from 
any consideration of its inherent merits ? nay, despite some quite 
obvious demerits ? 

No candidate for public favor, it may be said, ever had for 
champion an advocate more adroit and unyielding than this new- 
comer found in him who is justly reckoned as at once its chief 
apostle and its one undoubting prophet. 

Not only has Mr. Howells continually proclaimed realism as 
the one true form in fiction, he has sought to illustrate it in a series 
of volumes, remarkable in more than that particular, and which, by 
reason of their cleanness and the rare excellence of their style, not 
to mention other merits, and despite the system on which they are 
constructed, deserve all the kind things said of them. Still, is there 
any doubt that this amiable and accomplished writer has done much 
more as critic and advocate, as apostle and prophet, in "The Edi- 
tor's Study," to establish the fashion, than he has by realistic studies, 
found in the volumes mentioned ? And is it not already become a 
grave question whether it has not been easier to set the fashion than 
it promises to be to keep it within decent bounds ? 

Against the works of Howells, James, and their like, nothing 
can be said on this score ; but there has arisen another class, as 
earnest realists as these, who say that the realism of these is realism 
with a fig leaf, and that the fig leaf must go ! and they appear to 
have, logically, the better of the argument. 

If realism is, indeed, the one true form in fiction, it follows in- 
evitably that it must be very narrow in its scope, or it must some- 
times become offensive to clean-minded people, and in large part 
unfit for the youthful of both sexes, for whom, chiefly, fiction has 
popularly been supposed to be written. 

If Mr. Howells may, in "April Hopes," deal with the quite 
common-place behavior of two simple and pure minded young peo- 
ple, while they carry forward, or are carried forward by their love 
affair, and if doing so, he shall, obedient to the requirements of 
realism, descend to minutest detail, laying bare, with rare felicity, 
every impulse, emotion, and mental operation; reproducing to the 
very inflection of the voice, every word uttered, and every glance 
exchanged, who shall say Edgar Saltus nay ! when he sets himself 
the task in dealing in like manner with the behaviour of the parties 
to "A Transaction in Hearts?" Or why cry shame I when Amelia 
Rives, adopting the same form, gives the world " The Quick or The 
Dead?" or the tragedy of " Herod and Mariamna." 

If there are fig leaves in "April Hopes," they are there be- 
cause Alice Passmer and Dan Mavering are decent young folks. 
The difference is in the subjects treated, not in the form of treatment. 



8o WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

The one product is, no doubt, as faithfully realistic as the other. 
And if our authors had exchanged subjects, each one, if true to the 
fashion, would have felt himself obliged to do what the other has 
done, barring, of course, any difference in styles. For Mr. Howells, 
no more than Mr. Saltus, would have the right to clothe the naked, 
to put fig leaves on people who had deliberately discarded them. 

For what is realism as predicated of a form in fiction ? And 
here it should be noted that it is of recent origin ; so recent, indeed, 
that no dictionary of our language, so far as 1 am advised, attributes 
any such meaning to the word as that in which it is now currently 
used. The definition given in " The Encyclopaedic Dictionary," as 
applied to a mode in art, to-wit : 

"The representation of nature as it actually appears," while 
too narrow to define realism as a form in fiction, will yet fairly suf- 
fice to indicate what is meant. And in the sense indicated, idealism 
is its antithesis. This is made the more apparent, when we reflect 
that idealism has decreased, in critical favor, at least, as this new- 
comer has increased. 

But of this irrepressible conflict we may speak presently. 

Taking it then as true that realism, as a fashion in fiction, signi- 
fies the dealing with real incidents, episodes, and conduct as these 
actually arise in the lives of men and women, we are confronted 
with the question, " Is this Fiction, in any sense in which we have 
been accustomed to use the word?" 

Nor will it help us to an affirmative answer to suggest that the 
persons, incidents, episodes, and behaviour are supposititious. That 
still does not signify the fiction, to which the world, since the date 
of the book of Job, has been used ; for these are merely vehicular 
parts, and so far as it affects this point, the realism would be no 
more real, if the names were those of real persons and the behavior 
and episodes actual happenings, since to the realist it is bad form, 
and insufferable, to attribute to the supposititious Jones or Miss 
Jones any behaviour of which the real Jones or Miss Jones would 
not inevitably and to the surprise of no one be easily capable. 

So it will follow that a novel will be fit or unfit to come within 
our doors, dependent, not upon the genius and spirit of the author, 
but upon the genus of his subjects; not upon the cleanness or 
otherwise of the writer, but upon the cleanness or otherwise of his 
dramatis persome. Realism allows no discretion in its professor, ex- 
cept in the selection of his types ; for, once the actors appear, his 
power of election and selection is at an end. Thenceforward he is 
a biographer, an historian, who must slur nothing, palliate nothing. 
What he records is not, indeed, his affair ; an inexorable law con- 
strains him. He must set down whatever happens as it actually 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 8l 

appears to him. He may conjure with neither the people nor their 
behavior. If they are naked he may not clothe them ; if they are 
barbarians he may not civilize them ; if they behave shockingly he 
must hold his camera none the less steadily upon them, nor suppress 
any part of the picture, caught upon the sensitive plate ; nay, he 
must develop it in its every detail. He has not even the poor privi- 
lege of the other photographer of removing the wart from my 
gentleman's nose, or the wrinkles from my lady's brow. 

It is this devotion to detail, called by the votaries of realism 
faithfulness, trueness to nature, that fills a volume with the happen- 
ings in the life of a simple country girl, while as "The Lady of the 
Aroostook " she journeys with two young fellows from the coast 
of Massachusetts to Venice ; and another volume, with the incidents 
in the life of another simple maiden and "A Chance Acquaintance," 
while at a resort for a fortnight, or so. 

"Why, these are perfectly charming!" I hear some one ex- 
claim. 

"Charming?" Yes; for their author is a genius in his way, 
and has reduced literary micrology and photography to a fine art. 
Himself clean in mind and heart, he delights in the society of the 
clean and simple, and with scarcely an exception has introduced us 
to that sort of people; and has — some dare to think — so helped 
on a doubtful cause. 

' ' Charming ? " Yes ; but cui bono ? 

"O, the abundant good of it, if it has no other merit, is found 
in the graceful, incomparable style of the author," it may be said; 
indeed, is often said. 

On a San Francisco business street, in the window of the shop 
of a French modiste, there is, or was, two months' ago, a figure that 
never fails to arrest the attention of the passer-by ; the figure of a 
woman, dressed in a Liiigiicrie robe of daintiest linen cambric and 
real Valenciennes, her golden hair bespangled with costly jewels, her 
pretty feet clad in bewitching slipi)ers, the tints of perfect health 
glowing in her smooth skin. 

She is turning slowly around, so that if you stand for a long 
moment you shall see every graceful fold of the rare and costly 
drapery of that peerless robe; that is, if you are a woman. If a 
man, you will but glance at these and then turn your attention to 
the gracefully poised head, and that alabaster neck, half hidden by 
a narrow frill, and wait impatiently for a look at her face, now turned 
from you. Ah, what eyes she must have ! For a moment you look 
upon the matchless profile, the well-shaped ear, the sensitive nose, 
the tinted cheek, the gracefully rounded chin, the lips apart as those 
of one about to speak, and then by an unexpected movement, she 



82 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

suddenly confronts you. A single glance disenchants. The eyes, 
as expressionless as beads of jet, gaze blankly over your head at the 
bare walls across the street. It 's a dummy, a lay-figure, and you 
move on half angry and disgusted. 

But once accepted as the true form in fiction, realism will have 
its schools, as every other ism in and out of literature has had. 
There are those that will not be content to deal with simples, with 
trifles; who are not, indeed, qualified to do so, and under whose 
treatment the common-places which the rare skill of Howells ren- 
ders amusing would become insufferably irksome. 

It cannot be denied that the realism of Howells, as illustrated 
in his stories, is, whatever his teachings as critic may be, one-sided, 
extremely narrow in its play and scope. His types are few and 
like enough to have been, in the female characters, selected from 
among the dwellers on a single fashionable street, and in their male 
characters, to have been drawn from among the under-graduates of a 
single New England college. And while they are not quite goody- 
goody young people, they are always respectable, "highly con- 
nected," and void of positive faults; in short, not unfit associates 
for our sons and daughters. 

There is no call for the smoothing off of ugly angles in their 
characters or their conduct. No need to suppress their speeches or 
even their thoughts, for these are as proper as proper can be. 

But will Mr. Howells change his types and dare to remain as 
faithful in the use of his microscope, his camera, and his scalpel ? 

The very thought of it would give him a fit of the shudders. 
He could never again look one of his clientele — one of the ten 
thousand American girls — or boys either — who delighted in 
"April Hopes" and its like, in the face. 

"But Mr. Howells is not obliged to change his types," you 
argue. Ah, but realism has not only other sides, other types, it has 
other disciples. And these have already given us a sample of their 
wares. Nor is it to the point to decry these ; 'tis not even fair to 
do so. And the critics of the other school recognize this fact, or, 
at all events, have forborne. 

If one realist professes a vocation to record the mild and harm- 
less events in the lives, for a season, of the ]jarties to "A Chance 
Acquaintance," why may not another realist profess a like vocation 
to record those more stirring, and no doubt quite as true and natu- 
ral, if less proper and conventional incidents and passages in the 
lives, for a few weeks, of the Rev. Gonfallon and his sister-in-law 
while engaged in "A Transaction in Hearts?" And by what right 
shall the other realist expurgate the erotic fury in the " Quick or 
the Dead?" 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 83 

In short, where is the line to be drawn? and by whom? If 
reahsm is a good form, it must be because it insists upon presenting 
things as they are, deaUng with people and their behavior as they 
appear to the writer. But what kind of people ? what manner of 
behavior? The kind found in the stories of Howells, and James, 
and their like ? Really, these are scarcely worth the while. Nay, 
I will venture to assert that to mature men and women they are not 
worth the while, even after making due allowance for the excel- 
lence of their styles. 

Seriously, you grown people, have you ever arisen from the 
reading of one of these books with the feeling that you had been 
helped ? Anna Kilburn, possibly excepted, is there one single help- 
ful study of life to be found in all these pleasingly written stories? 
And have you not exclaimed as you were borne along on the 
slow-moving current of the story, "What a pity that such skill, 
such keen insight, such power of analysis have not been applied to 
worthier tasks ? to something worthy of the vast pains bestowed by 
the author?" 

Yet, these are, no doubt, within the scope compassed, genuine 
realism. And while it confines itself to the treatment of simple, 
clean subjects, it will do little harm, if small good. But, as we have 
noted, and we have space to do no more than suggest the fact, it 
has not and will not so limit itself. All about and around and, no 
doubt, within the very society from which Mr. Howells and his like 
select their types, there are others upon whom and whose lives, if 
the camera were faithfully turned and the picture developed as faith- 
fully as in the other cases, the disclosures would be unspeakable. 
And are there not scores of men and women with a penchant, even 
a genius for writing, who will elect to turn their microscopes and 
their cameras and to use their scalpels upon these other types, in 
which society, it is to be feared, by far too much abounds? 

To every protest, realism as a fashion, affords ample answer. 

"What I have written is a truth to nature," cries the author. 
"It is not my affair if the picture is ugly. I am responsible for its 
truthfulness, not its hideousness. Do you expect a silk purse to be 
made of a sow's ear? If you don't like the stump in the picture 
just take it out of the landscape, and then the next time I turn my 
camera in that direction I shall show you a picture with never a 
stump in it." And the objector, heaving a sigh of defeat, as he 
remembers the fashion, says "That's so, I must allow." 

Even the other realist himself, he who set the fashion, and pro- 
claimed it the one true form in fiction, but who in setting and in 
following it, meant only to amuse, not to shock, disgust, or worse 
yet, demoralize his readers, protests in the clean and honest heart 



84 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

of him. But against him and his protest, there is an estoppel, in 
pais and of record, and the author pleads it. 

"I beg pardon, Sir Critic," he argues, "it is not, as you well 
know, being yourself a realist, albeit of another school than mine, 
it is not a question of whether you like my picture, nor yet of 
whether it is a pleasing, comely picture ; but is it true ? answer me 
that." 

And the discomfited critic is compelled to answer that it is true. 

But forbearmg to enter further upon considerations, arising in 
this direction, let us turn briefly to another branch of our subject. 
Suppose none shall ever abuse the fashion by using it as an excuse 
or apology for writing what were better left unwritten, in the guise 
of fiction, what then may be said of realism ? 

I remember to have seen, once, a Dutch painting, the repro- 
duction of the corner of a room, embracing a part of the great fire- 
place ; done, it was said, by one of their masters. There was the 
one andiron, a moiety of the glowing coals, the tiles in the visible sec- 
tion of the hearth, the bare walls, the half of the old smoke-be- 
grimed clock on the mantel-piece, the hour hand, nearly approach- 
ing five in the afternoon, the minute hand invisible ; an old man 
holding in the gnarled fingers of his rough hand a pipe, the smoke 
issuing from its bowl ; the floor bare but for a great cat sleeping 
at the old man's feet. 

It was a perfect picture, but with no more perspective than the 
walls of a cellar. But there was no call for any, and so it was true 
art. 

But such a picture does not purport to be a product of the im- 
agination. That faculty needed to have no part in its production. 
It required for its construction only the skilled hand and the trained 
eye. But with another kind of picture it is quite different. 

He who painted "The Last Judgment," or "Christ Before 
Pilate," must have these not only, for these, unaided, could create a 
world as easily as they could produce "The Last Judgment" or 
any one of a hundred other great pictures that have moved the 
heart of the world. The skilled hand and the trained eye were 
indispensable indeed, but before these, and greater than these in the 
task, was the function of the imagination. 

Yet realism has its place in painting. Some pictures may be 
produced without any aid from the imagination. One can scarcely 
conceive any use for that faculty in producing the Dutch picture 
described. The artist either had the subject before his eyes, or 
lying in his memory. 

But with fiction as a department of literature it is quite a dif- 
ferent matter, unless, indeed, this new fashion has changed the 
meaning of the word. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 85 

The Encyclopaedic Dictionary defines fiction 

as "the literary productions of the imagination, whether prose or verse, 
narrative or dramatic ; more specifically applied to prose romances, or 
novels. " 

English and American writers uniformly use the word in the 
sense of this definition. 

Realism, then, is the exact antithesis of fiction. The work of 
the realist, if he is true to his professions, cannot be said to be in 
any true sense the product of the imagination. It is the product 
of the memory, aided by that quality of the mind which the mental 
philoso[)hers distinguish from the imagination and call it fancy, and 
which differs in its functions from the imagination. In the work-of 
the realist, the memory reproduces, while the fancy adjusts and re- 
lates the things brought. There is nothing new resulting from the 
collaboration. 

The pose, the glance of the eye, the grimace, the coquetry, 
the attitudinizing, largely, the very speech are reproduced by the 
memory, if not in identity, in verisimility ; and the fancy does the 
rest. The one is, so to speak, the hod-carrier, the other, the 
mason. The creative faculty has small part in the processes. And 
as the painter needed no imagination to aid him in reproducing the 
corner of the room, neither does the author of this product require 
any aid from that faculty. 

Again we assert that it is not fiction at all. It is biography, 
wherein real conduct is attributed to supposititious personages. So 
long as it deals with simple and innocent behavior, it may be harm- 
less, but scarcely useful. But with whatsoever kind it may deal, 
it flies false colors when it inscribes "fiction" upon its pennant. 

Realism in the literary sense concerns history and biography. 
There is its true place, and it has no lawful one in fiction, except as 
everything else may have, for that is the privilege, greater than 
even the poet's, of the writer of fiction ; he may lay all things un- 
der tribute. 

Let, then, realism be content with its place ; and if it will con- 
sent to be and not go masquerading under assumed names, endeav- 
oring to cheat us, striving to pass itself off for what it is not andean 
never be; if it will forbear invading nurseries in the guise of that 
beloved friend of the children — the story-teller, the romancer — 
of blessed memory in all lands and ages, we shall, notwithstanding 
its recent insufferable presumption, continue to respect and prize it 
for all it is worth. And when the young ones grow older, if it will 
come wearing its own homely garb and its own name, and will say, 
" By your leave," it may be cheerfully assigned ample quarters in 
their book-cases. 



86 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

If, then, the word fiction is applicable to products or creations 
of the imagination only, what is its proper office? The answer is 
simple, and as old as it is simple : The presentation of ideals. 

The world needs ideals ; and when these have not been sup- 
plied, it has gone about setting up for itself idols. 

Whenever the people have not been furnished for their spirit- 
ual contemplation, something or somewhat higher and better than 
themselves, they have invariably attempted to supply a substitute, 
visible to their eyes of sense, using the best material at hand. If 
they have had gold they used that ; if not, they have used stone, or 
possessing neither they have employed wood; but always, it has 
been the best available material, for they have desired something 
not only better than themselves, but less evanescent. 

Every golden calf and graven image that ever the race set up 
has certified the activity of that faculty called the imagination and 
has demonstrated the yearning and aspiration of man's spiritual 
nature toward an ideal. "There must be something better than 
this state and higher than I," has been the cry in every soul 
from the beginning. The Supreme Ruler has been constrained 
to send, from time to time, into the world, exceptional personages 
to meet these aspirations and yearnings half way. To the Orientals 
he sent Buddha, Zoroaster, Confucius; to the world, Jesus Christ. 

But in addition to these racial types and ideals, there must be 
supplied others in many directions. 

To the gifted, to those specially endowed and qualified, the 
task of supplying these has been committed. The obligation can- 
not be discharged within the limits imposed by realism, whether 
within the domain of literature or that of art. It surely cannot be 
true that the realistic picture, however artistic of execution, can 
uplift the souls of men. It may please and amuse, but it does not 
respond to that faculty which aspires to something higher than that 
which lies about us, and which is cognizable by the external senses. 
So, neither can that fiction — if we must call it fiction — which 
concerns itself with the common-places in the lives of our neigh- 
bors, or people just like them, respond to this majestic faculty of the 
soul. ■ As well expect to satisfy it with the gossip of a wool-pick- 
ing. Indeed, the realism found in current fiction differs from 
common gossip only in the fact that it is reduced to writing and 
painfully embellished. 

If realism is here to stay, the faculty of imagination must fall 
into decay and obsolescence, to become, a few generations hence, 
extinct, like eyes in the fishes found in Mammoth Cave. For the 
King is not more prompt to forfeit a charter for non-user, than na- 
ture to extinguish an unused endowment, whether it be fin of fish 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 87 

or the faculty of an arch angel. And if by non-user the race forfeit 
this faculty, what is it to get to compensate the loss? Anything? 
Possibly; for once started in that direction who shall foretell the 
consequences ? 

We may even get back what our remote ancestors so recklessly 
exchanged for the useless faculty, so that the future realist may be 
able to take his observations of the behavior of his hero and heroine, 
while the whole trio, the observed and the observer are hanging 
by their tails to the limbs of neighboring trees. For there can 
be small doubt that it was when they began to feel the stirrings of 
that new-born faculty, the imagination, that the primitive fathers 
and mothers of the race assumed the perpendicular and began to 
turn their faces heavenward, whither the faculty pointed. Why, 
then, when it becomes extinct shall not their descendants resume 
the old attitude, and later, tails ? since nature is a considerate 
mother and supplies her creatures, if they will but have a little 
patience, with facilities for the enjoynfent of their place and station. 

Seriously, think of a literature in the production of which the 
imagination had, in the language of the Scotch law, neither "art 
nor part." Try to fancy with what sort of feelings you would open 
each new work of fiction — so called. 

Now — Yes, even yet — as you leave the book stall with your 
new acquisition, having been careful to note its author before buy- 
ing, you begin to ask " What new ideals am I to find here? What 
fresh type of hero and heroism?" For I assume that you have 
not suffered yourself to be Inillied out of your liking for ideal heroes 
and heroism, even of the slightly improbable type. 

But suppose there were to be written no more stories of ideal 
heroes and heroism, and instead of the romances that have moved 
the hearts and inspired the lives of millions, you found yourself 
possessed of a volume gotten up on the realist's plan, what would 
you ask yourself, if, indeed, you felt enough interest to institute 
any inquiry? Well, if its author belonged to the mild school, you 
could ask no question that you could not answer by reading the 
title page. But if it chanced to be the product of the other school, 
iht ferocious — the predaceous school, the realist with a whereas, and 
I suspect it would — you would wonder what ghastly aspect of soci- 
ety is to be exhibited here; what that is fetid, and noxious, have 
the microscope, the scalpel, and the camera-obscura uncovered 
now ? 

" But are there no heroes nor heroism in real life?" you ask. 
Aye, indeed are there ! But history and biography will take care 
of these. They are in no wise debtors to realism for the preserva- 
tion of their names and deeds. 



88 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Besides, your genuine realist, especially of the dilettante school, 
does not believe in heroes and heroism. This school regards both 
the real and imaginary hero and heroism as themes too stirring ; it 
is not good fonn to move, to stir your readers. The highest enco- 
mium possible to be passed by one of this school upon a recent 
drama, is that it has neither a marriage nor a death in it. But it is so 
amusing ; so true to nature, and deals with siu/i delightful nothings. 
Just as if the source of laughter were not always found hard by the 
fountain of tears. As to the other school — well, it has other fish 
to fry, as "A Transaction in Hearts," " The Quick or the Dead?" 
and their like, certify us. 

I conclude then, confidently, that realism as a vogue in fiction 
is not here to stay ; that its sway is forced, factitious, and therefore 
ephemeral ; is, indeed, the only real fiction, respecting, or about it. 
And while pretending to no more than ordinary acumen, I venture 
the prophesy that that faculty of the mind called the imagination, 
trained and quickened in m'en and women, will continue in the 
future to mmister, as in all the ages, since ever the race began, it has 
ministered to that faculty of the souls of men, which yearns for 
lofty ideals, and will refuse to be satisfied with what the realists of 
either school have to offer it. And so, it shall come to pass, that in 
the irrepressible conflict between the earthly and the heavenly, the 
fittest shall survive. 



RECITATIVE. 

Mrs. D. M. Jordan — Dedicatory Poem to the " City Fountain " 
of Cificinnati, and " The Whistling Boy." 

Mr. W. W. Pfrimmer — A poem in ^^Hoosier Dialect." 

N. J. Clodfelter — ^'Spirits of the Storm." 

J-AMES Whitcomr Riley — Selection in '^^ Dialect." 

Dr. H. W. Tayi^ok— ''Deserter Black." 

Adjourned. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 89 

THURSDAY, JULY ii. 

Morning Session. 
Tabernacle. 

The Morning Session of the Second Day of the Convention 
was opened promptly at 9 o'clock, with President Parker in the 
Chair. 

Secretary's report of the previous day was omitted by consent 
of the Chair. 

The Treasurer's report for the year was read and accepted. 

Judge C. F. McNutt moved that an order be drawn upon the 
Treasurer to defray the official expenses of the Association. 

Prof. J. C. Ridpath seconded the motion. 

The motion was unanimously carried. 



Prof. John Clark Ridpath — Poem. 

"VOX CLAMANTIS." 
I. 
Did you say cry out ? Well, what shall I cry? 
For the streams are thick and the floods are dry, 
And my hopes return to the fountain head, 
And the blood flows back like a tide of lead, 
And the clover blooms in the clover fields 

Are not the blooms that they used to be, 
And the tasseled corn of the cornfield yields 

No odorous balm for the sense of me ! 
Shall I cry for a Name ? It is not the thing 
That I thought it was in the days of Spring, 
When I lay by the banks of many a stream, 

Or followed the phantom of many a form, 
Or gathered the fragments of song in a dream 

In the lonesome woodland's shine or storm, 
Or played with the fringe of the gilded bow 
On the summer cloud of the long ago ; 
No ; not for a Name — 
'Tis a flicker of flame 
That plays, for a night, in the ashes of fame ! 



90 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 



Did you say cry out ? Well, what shall I cry ? 
For the years are dull and the days are dry, 
And the leaves are brown that used to be green 
On the summer's dimpled and dappled screen ; 
And the music of words grows faint and dies, 

And the pictures that hang in the echoing halls 
Look down with their lifeless and soulless eyes 

From their somber frames on the solemn walls ! 
Shall I cry for Gold ? It has not the ring 
That I thought it had in the days of Spring ; 
And I deem it will somehow weigh them down 

Who carry a load of that metal far ; 
When the days grow gray and the years grow brown 

Will they open the Gate with a golden bar ? 
The yellow ore hath the power to buy. 
But it kind o' chokes when we come to die ! 
No ; not for Gold — 
It is heavy and cold ! 
What good will it do when a man is old ? 



Did you say cry out ? Well, what shall I cry ? 
Is the day not here and the hour not nigh 
When the reed that quivers beside the stream 
Shall bend no more to the watery gleam ? 
Why vex the air with a song or a shout ? 

Why call to the shore where the surge is beating, 
Where the billows break and the tides go out ? 

Will the ocean hear while you stand repeating ? 
Shall I cry for Love ? It is not the thing 
That it seemed to be in the days of Spring ; 
For the waters quench while the embers burn. 

And the pulse beats low, like a falling tide, 
And the birds fly South, and the archers turn 

With another dart for a bleeding side, — 
And the roaring billows are swallowed up — 
Can you soothe the sea in a lily cup ? 
No; not for Love — 
From the cliffs above 
To the rocks below sinks the fluttering dove ! 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 9 1 



Did you say cry out ? Well, what shall I cry ? 
For the nights are dark and the winds blow high, 
And the tempests gather and lightnings gleam 
With a threatening glare ov^er woods and stream ; 
And the heavy refrain of solitude 

Comes up with a moan from the deep, deep sea 
Is there any shell with an interlude 

Of an unsung song for the soul of me ? 
Shall I cry for Rest ? 'Tis a sweeter thing 
Than I dreamed it was in the days of Spring ! 
There's a folded hand, and a closing eye. 

And the sinking of thought on the mighty deep, 
And the heaving of many an unsighed sigh 

As my soul sinks back into dreamless sleep ! 
With thy sightless eyes and thy sweet lips dumb 
O, Sister of silent Oblivion, come ! 
Aye ; even for Rest — 
It is sweetest and best 
For a wounded life or a heavy breast ! 



Mr. George B. Cardvvill moved that a Nominating Committee 
of five be appointed for the nomination of Officers and Executive 
Committee for the ensuing year. 

Judge McNutt seconded the motion. 

Motion was carried. 

COMMITTEE. 

Geo. B. Cardvvill, Prof. J. C. Ridpath, Mrs. M. L. Andrews, 
Dr. H. W. Taylor, L. May Wheeler. 

Mary E. Cardwill, Corresponding Secretary, read letters of re- 
gret and extended greetings from absent members and friends of 
the Association, as follows : 

Dr. J. N. Matthews, Mason, Illinois; Alice French, "Octave Thanet,'' 
Davenport, Iowa; Charles J. O'Malley, Hitesville, Kentucky; Richard Lew. 
Dawson, Indianapolis, Indiana ; Mrs. Annie J. Fellows-Johnston, and Mrs. 
Albion M. Fellows-Bacon, Evansville, Indiana ; Alice Williams Brotherton 
and Mamie S. Paden, Cincinnati, Ohio : Mrs. A. L. Ruter Dufour, Wash- 
ington, D. C; Hon. Will. Cumback, Greensburg, Indiana; Judge D. D. 



92 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Banta, Franklin, Indiana; Hon. Moses F. Dunn, Bedford, Indiana; C. L. 
Phifer, California, Missouri ; Mrs. F. M. Howard, Carroll, Iowa ; Nellie 
Moore, " Clemenzy Jane Fowler," Defiance, Ohio; Rachel Littell, Cincinnati, 
Ohio; Lee O. Harris, Greenfield, Indiana; Prof. Hattie A. Prunk, Indian- 
apolis, Indiana ; Dr. S. A. Butterfield, Indianapolis, Indiana ; Evaleen Stein, 
Lafayette, Indiana ; Mary Durham, Washington, D. C; Dr. H. S. Cunning- 
ham, Indianapolis, Indiana ; Miss Ce Dora Lieuellen, Danville, Indiana ; 
Clarence A. Buskirk, Princeton, Indiana ; Ida May Davis, Terre Hante, In- 
diana ; Rena L. Miner, La Grange, Indiana; Margret Holmes Bates, In- 
dianapolis, Indiana ; Capt. W. DeWitt Wallace, Lafayette, Indiana ; OUa 
Perkins Toph, Indianapolis, Indiana; Emily Thornton Charles, Washington, 
D. C; and Julia Carter Aldrich, Wauseon, Ohio. 



Mr. Theophilus Van Deren, one of the pioneer poets of the 
West, contributed the following "Sonnet" expressly for the Con- 
vention, which was read by Miss Cardwill : 

"TO PALMYRA IN THE DESERT.' 

My spirit rests within thy streets to-night, 
And hears no sound except the jackal's cries. 
And of the night-bird that at evening flies 

As if to wail thy loneliness and blight. 

The moon's enthron'd, and in her liquid light 
The roofless walls stand out before my eyes. 
And marble columns, pointing to the skies. 

Appear thy sentinels in vestments white. 

The fallen palace here, and ruin there, 
Mark this as life and center of thy trade, 
Where men and women thronged, and children played. 

In the oasis of the desert bare ; 

But thou art spoiled and yet dost lovely seem. 
While I of all thy vanished glory, dream. 



Mrs. Maria Sears Brooks, writer of prose and verse, presented 
an " Essay" upon the 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 93 



"OLD TESTAMENT POETS." 



Saint Paul says, that 

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." 

However great the mind may be it is certain that Ood never 
works without preparation. Never a blade of grass without sun 
and dew, and a proper adjustment of the soil. Even Moses must 
go to school in Egypt, and dwell in the tents of Midian. David 
sinned, and was forgiven before he could say 

"The Lord is my Shepherd." 
Solomon was surfeited with riches before he exclaimed 

"All is vanity." 
The Lord said unto Isaiah 

" Take a roll and write in it with a man's pen." 

Yet Isaiah walked unclothed and barefoot for the space of three 
years, as a special preparation. 

The prophet Jeremiah was ordained before he was born, yet he 
suffered imprisonment and persecution, and became discouraged, 
and made up his mind not to write any more, but the word burned 
within him and could not be stayed. 

Ezekiel was put to hard study until he had mastered the roll of 

a book that the Lord gave him ; so we find that insi)iration in the 

old time was not unlike that of later times, and that it comes chiefly 

through a capacity for hard work, through avenues of suffering, of 

, isolation, disappointment, and sorrow. 

From the growth of trial, comes the growth of the spirit. No true 
poet in the Bible, or out of it, ever received his inspiration without 
first going into the mountain, entering the clouds of sorrow, disap- 
pearing for a time — then perhaps he may stand forth luminous as 
an angel. 

Follow the personality "of some of the Old Testament Poets 
and see in what way their preparation came. Put aside the statue, 
and study the human personage — the man — see what influences 
wrought amid his daily life, and gave him his distinctive character- 
istics. For this purpose I have chosen three of the minor prophets — 
Amos, Hosea, and Micah. 

Not one of these boasts of aristocratic lineage ; none wore a 
kingly, nor a ])riestly robe. They did not even belong to a recog- 
nized band of pro])hets. Their poetic fervor appears as the result of 
passing events. Their humble lives began in the days of the second 
Jeroboam, who reigned in the rich and fertile country of Bethshan. 
It was a time of unparalleled luxury, of great wickedness, and great 



94 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

splendor at the Samaritan court. For more than two hundred 
years Israel had been given to practices of idolatry. They had for- 
saken the holy city of Jerusalem, robbed its temple of gold and 
silver, and made to themselves other gods, still claiming the protec- 
tion of Jehovah. A King of Israel had set up in Samaria a temple 
in honor of the Syrian Baal, carrying on its worship side by side 
with that of Jehovah. In addition to this internal corruption, the 
world was seething on either side of them. It was the time when 
the destinies of civilized Asia were to be fought out by the two 
great powers — Egypt and Assyria. Seeing the impending destruc- 
tion of Israel, the prophets besought the people to return to the God 
of Abraham. 

The days of Robert Burns behind his plow were not passed in 
greater seclusion, nor more remote from life in cities, than were 
those of Amos. His language betrays the same rustic simplicity 
as that of the Scotch poet, the same acquaintance with the wild ele- 
ments of nature, but there is something beyond this — it is the high 
seriousness born of absolute sincerity. He has brooded over the 
wrongs of his people, under the star-lit skies. Alone with his 
sleeping flock he has entered into communion with the Most High. 

With an enthusiasm which we to-day call fanaticism, Amos 
grew to the full stature of the Lord's messenger. 

Two years before the earthquake a festival was in progress at 
Bethel. Bethel was the most conspicuous sanctuary of Jehovah in 
all Israel, but here multitudes were assembled with gifts and offer- 
ings, sacrificing to the golden calves of Jeroboam. Using the Jewish 
ritual, they were burning incense at the hands of priests who were 
not the sons of Levi. Suddenly a shepherd, lowly and unknown, 
stands among them. He has come from the wilderness of Tekoa, 
on the borders of the Dead Sea — a long and weary journey. The 
silence which follows his entrance is broken only as the voice of 
Amos smites the air with the mourner's wail : 

" The Virgin of Israel is fallen never more to rise. She is forsaken 
upon her land ; there is none to raise her up." 

In vehement language he proclaims the downfall of Israel as 
close at hand. His solitary life upon the wild hills of Judah has 
made him familiar with storm and tempest, and the strong imagery 
which he employs has b,een learned in the fierce conflicts of chang- 
ing seasons. With a voice like an on-coming tempest, he cries : 

"The Lord will roar from Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem, 
the habitations of the shepherd shall mourn and the top of Carmel shall 
wither." 

In short emphatic clauses he denounces their idolatry, their 
unthankfulness, their oppression, and their incorrigibleness. The 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 95 

burden of their iniquities weighs so heavily upon him that he com- 
pares himself to 

" A cart that is pressed full of sheaves." 

In recounting their oppression of the poor he uses the boldest 
metaphor. Has Shakespeare depicted a Shylock any more forcibly 
than this? 

"They sell the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes ; 
they pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor. " 

The simplicity of his style is that of the highest art. Amos 
tells them himself how the word of the Lord came to him in a 
vision of a basket of summer fruit, and in words that have never 
been surpassed in describing the creative power of the Most High, 
he solemnly utters this adjuration : 

" Prepare to meet thy God, O, Israel. For lo ! He that formeth the 
mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto men what is His 
thought, that maketh the morning darkness and treadeth upon the high 
places of the earth, the Lord, the God of Hosts is his name. Ye who turn 
judgment to wormwood and leave oft righteousness in the earth, seek Him 
that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death 
into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night ; that calleth for the 
waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth. The 
Lord is His name." 

The solemn night watches, the onward march of the constella- 
tions, the morning mists as they rolled up from the sea while he 
watched his flocks, have given him a conception of his Creator 
impossible to one whose life is hedged in where men buy and sell 
and get gain. He is not dismayed by haughty looks, nor by words 
of contemi)t, but, filled with the free spirit engendered by moun- 
tain air, he addresses himself to these luxurious people : 

"Who lie upon beds of ivory and eat the choice of the herds, who 
drink wine in bowls, and chant to the sound of the viol." 

" For," he says, "Ye have turned judgment into gall and the fruit of 
righteousness into hemlock." 

That the critic was ready and alert in that day we have ample 
proof, and from the tenor of his speech we may suppose him to be 
the father of all the critics to the present day. He assumed that 
Amos, obscure and unknown to fame, intruding in this manner 
upon the select'circles of the city of Bethel, had been filled with 
the utmost presumption, that it would far better become him to re- 
tire to the provincial atmosphere of Judah's hill tops. This critic 
was a man of note — no less a personage than Amaziah, a priest of 
this reactionary image ciiltus. 

After recovering from his surprise at the prophet's audacity, 
he scornfully says to Amos, 



96 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

"Go, thou seer, go; flee away into the land of Judah, and there eat 
bread, and prophesy there, but prophesy not any more at Bethel, for it is the 
King's Chapel and it is the King's Court.'' 

Listen to the sturdy independence of Amos as he confronts this 
self-appointed critic : 

" I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son, but I was an herds- 
man and a gatherer of sycamore fruit, and the Lord took me up as I followed 
the flock, and said unto me, 'Go prophesy unto my people Israel.' Now, 
therefore, hear tlioit the word of the Lord. " 

Then in language that is not at all ambiguous, he fortells the 
especial calamities that shall overtake Amaziah and his family, and 
further says : 

"The songs in the temples shall be bowlings in that day. Will a lion 
roar in the forest when he hath no prey? The lion hath roared, the Lord 
God hath spoken. Who can but prophesy? " 

The figures Amos employs are all drawn from his wild out- 
door life. When the promise of God that he will not utterly destroy 
the house of Jacob overwhelms the seer and he sings of the restor- 
ation of David's Tabernacle, it is still with the same pastoral im- 
agery : 

" Behold the mountains shall drop sweet wine and all the hills shall 
melt, and I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel." 

The beauty and fitness of his imagery entitles Amos to the 
highest place in literature. 

The prophet Hosea was contemporary with Amos. Whatever 
standing or reputation he may have had was clouded by the bitter 
disgrace of one he loved — the wife of his bosom, the mother of his 
children. In obedience to the divine command Hosea married the 
daughter of Diblaim, with the taint of profligacy in her blood. She 
was faithless to him and left him and her three children, who had 
received names symbolical of God's purpose toward the house of 
Israel. She, at last, fallen and in despair, is rescued and brought 
back to her house by her husband Hosea, who, setting aside the rigor 
of the Jewish law, with tender affection provides for her and watches 
over her. 

It is said that this trial was permitted that Hosea might enter 
into the feeling of God at Israel's departure from their covenant 
obligations — that so he might comprehend God's great compassion 
toward his erring people. 

The poet Heine, chained for years to a bed of suffering, once 
said : 

"Only the man who has known bodily suffering is truly a maji ; his 
limbs have their passion-history — they are spiritualized." 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 97 

If this be true of the flesh, must it not be doubly true of the 
lacerated affections of the heart ? Of this chastening of the spirit, 
Hosea furnishes the highest example in all literature. There was 
no outward ceremony, no formal adoption into the school of the 
prophets, but baptized and consecrated in the waters of affliction,' 
Hosea went forth to proclaim the long suffering, the mercy, the for- 
giveness of God. It was in the experiences of his domestic life, 
amid the ruins of his desolated home and worse than widowed heart 
that Hosea first heard the revealing voice of Jehovah, saying : 

" Set the trumpet to thy mouth and fly as an eagle against the house of 
the Lord." 

Hosea, we have said, was not of royal blood, but he was pos- 
sessed of a royalty of spirit that makes him the King Arthur of the 
Bible, the Knight of the Round Table in Judea. Although the story 
of King Arthur deals only with the human side of life, the picture 
drawn by Tennyson of the stages of mental anguish, correspond so 
nearly with that of Hosea, that one must fain believe "that here the 
British poet found a model. 

When taking upon himself the controversy of the Lord, 
Hosea's words, like those of King Arthur at the holy house of 
Almesbury, are first those of reproach : 

"There is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land, 
but swearing and lying and killing and stealing." 

The wrath and the first pang past, like King Arthur, whose 

" Vast pity almost made him die," 

in passionate tenderness Hosea exclaims to the faithless ones : 

" O, Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee ? O, Judah, what shall I do 
unto thee ? For your goodness is as the morning cloud, and as the early 
dew it goeth away." 

Then he entreats : 

"Come, let us return unto the Lord, for He hath torn and He will 
heal us ; He hath smitten and He will bind us up." 

Then the full sense of the enormity of the transgression pro- 
duces loathing and despair : 

"They have sown the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind. They 
went to Baal-peor and separated themselves to that shame." 

And in anguish he cries : 

"My God will cast them away, and they shall be wanderers among 
the nations." 

The great grief of separation and leave taking is thus expressed : 



90 ■ WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

"When Israel was a child, then I loved him. I drew them with the 
cords of a man, with bands of love How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? 
How shall I deliver thee, Israel ? " 

Has England's poet-laureate put into King Arthur's speech 
anything more touching in his last interview with Guinevere than 
Hosea's final effort at reconciliation ? 

" Behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness, and speak 
comfortably unto her, and I will give her vineyards from thence, and the 
valley of Achor for a door of hope, and she shall sing as in the days of her 
youth, and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy." 

The sublime beauty of the poet occurs especially in those pas- 
sages where with yearning love he follows Israel to call them back 
from their sin. 

A further parallel with Tennyson's idyl is where the poet 
causes King Arthur to say : 

" Lo ! I forgive thee as eternal God forgives." 

Had he before him at this time the full tide of Divine com- 
passion, the sublimity of the God-head which Hosea saw when 
with divine ecstasy he exclaims ? 

"I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, for I am God and 
not man. O, Israel, thou hast not destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help. 
I will redeem thee from death." 

King Arthur is made to say : 

" Let no man dream but that I love thee still ; 
I am thine husband, not a smaller soul.'' 

Hosea says : 

"I will be thy King, where is any other that may save thee in all thy 
cities ?" 

As if to justify such forbearance, with what dignity he en- 
quires : 

"Who is wise and he shall understand these things ; prudent, and he 
shall know them ? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk 
in them." 

Hundreds have read the Idyls of the King, and have wept in 
sympathy with the true-hearted knight. Whether a myth or no. 
King Arthur stands for all that is purest and noblest in man ; but 
how many find his prototype in Hosea, and discern the pathos of 
God's love ? the tender yearning over fallen humanity ? Is it 
because we lose sight of the human agency which God employs? 
Surely, if God could assume our human nature. He does not disdain 
to use human language for man's comprehension. A Jewish legend 
relates that Hosea died in captivity in Babylon, and that he was 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 99 

carried to upper Galilee, and there was buried on the eastern shore 
of the Jordan. No cloud received him, no chariot of fire carried 
him from the gaze of admiring multitudes. It was for him to share 
the humiliation of his people to the very dregs, and in that far away 
country by the waters of Babylon his tried spirit found release. 

Another seer of the same century was Micah, who dwelt in the 
low-land near the Philistine country. A Moresthite he is called — 
one of the oppressed or peasant class. His sympathies are all with 
the down-trodden of his own nation, and he rebukes the princes in 
strong language for their treatment of the poor : 

' ' They hunt every man with a net that they may do evil with both hands 
earnestly. The best of them is a brier ; the most upright is sharper than a 
thorn-hedge — the good man is perished out of the earth. Woe is me ! I 
am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape gleanings of 
the vintage there is no cluster to eat." 

He is only one of the innumerable throng of poets who have 
fought with famine and contended with insult. Toil, envy and want 
have caused him to dine on bitter herbs. He has been over- 
reached in his dealings, and in buying and selling he has got the 
worst of it. Roused to indignation, he inquires : 

" Shall I count thee pure with the wicked balances, and with the de- 
ceitful weights ?" 

His confidence has been abused— he has grown cynical. He 
exclaims : 

" Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide." 

With a spirit of undaunted courage he says, bravely : 

"Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy, when I fall I shall arise." 

His pent up emotion bursts forth after this manner : 

"Truly I am full of the power of the spirit of the Lord and of judg- 
ment, and of might to declare unto Israel their sin. And what doth the 
Lord require of thee but to do justly and love mercy, and to walk humbly 
with thy God." 

He has felt the grinding heel of the rich and powerful, and he 
contemjilates with satisfaction the time when they shall cry unto the 
Lord and he will not hear, when Zion shall be plowed, and Jerusa- 
lem become heaps. There is none of the compassion and tender- 
ness of Hosea, but, with the bitterness born of poverty and deg- 
radation, he invokes the monarch of Assyria, whose court is at La- 
chish, to bind the chariot to the swift beast, and hasten to their de- 
struction. If living to-day, he would be classed with the Anarchists. 

Of the poor, the oppressed, the remnant, 

"Whom the Lord shall gather as sheaves into the floor," 



lOO WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

what does he say ? Looking far into futurity, beyond this nineteenth 
century, and some have said even to our own land, he declares : 

" The remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles, in the midst of 
many peoples ; as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion 
among the flocks of sheep." 

There is nothing like poverty to sharpen the vigor of prophecy. 
Micah, the lowly one, is the only prophet to point out Bethlehem as 
the birthplace of the Messiah. His prophecy concerning the victory 
of Christ's kingdom and the glories of the millenium is the hope of 
every son of toil and oppression. 

In this retrospect of the Hves of these three poets, Amos, Rosea, 
and Micah, we see that each reflected in his work the peculiar con- 
dition of his life. Each is a human being, subject to the same sor- 
rows and disappointments that afflict poets from the beginning until 
now. Thus were they refined and made ready for the work. 

They lived in an age fraught with momentous results — of tragic 
interest to their race. Each from his own point of view compre- 
hended the significance of passing events and gave to them his own 
local color, and with the high and excellent seriousness which Aris- 
totle assigns as one of the grand virtues of poetry, they gave to us 

" the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge." 

A simple herdsman, upon the hills of Tekoa, Amos saw the 
Lord standing upon the altar, and heard his voice saying : 

" Smite the lintel of the door that the posts may shake." 

And we have seen with what terrible earnestness he responded to 
the call. It is said the muse is made to sing, to love, to believe, to 
pray. Even so, yet preparation may come as it did to Hosea, by 
reason of some terrible affliction, some crushing sorrow, which bows 
the soul to the very dust. God knows that only so is the poet able 
to reach the whole gamut of human passion and suffering, only so 
can the divine message be voiced within him. Fame, riches, honor, 
may not concern the poet. 

"Woe unto the foolish prophets that follow their own spirit and have 
seen nothing. Eat thy bread with quaking, and drink thy water with tremb- 
ling and with carefulness, and say unto the people, 'thus saith the Lord.' " 

Let the poet wait_ until something having the appearance of 
fire, with brightness the color of amber, shall put forth a hand, and 
taking him by the lock of the head as it did Ezekiel, the spirit shall 
lift him up between the heaven and the earth that the vision may be 
plain to him ; then he shall not build with untempered mortar. 
Almost three thousand years since the days of the prophets, yet to- 
day the words they uttered attest their right, not only to the 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. lOI 

prophet's mantle, but to the poet's chaplet. We may be sure no 
thought of fame, no dream of worldly honor, no hope of reward 
animated the stirring passages found in their works. So must all 
work be done that shall endure. Evil, injustice, ignorance, and 
worldliness still exist; vices to rebuke, crimes to abhor. It is the 
mission of the poet to lead toward the infinite, the good. Eschylus 
says : 

"From the beginning the illustrious poet has served men. Orpheus 
taught the horror of murder ; and the divine Homer, heroism." 

Victor Hugo says : 

"It detracts nothing from the poet to be the great servant. All the 
mysterious voices sing within him none the less because upon occasion, and 
impelled by duty, he has uttered the cry of a race, because his bosom must 
needs swell with the deep human sob. The imprecation can be just as holy 
as the hozanna. To be the servant of God in the task of progress, and the 
apostle of God to the people, such is the law which regulates the growth of 
genius." 

To those who would place the poet outside of humanity, he 
submits this test, and it is the test by which the Bible poets must be 
tried if they are to benefit man : 

" Let the poet have wings for the infinite, provided he hath feet for the 
earth. After he has been seen as an archangel, let him once more be a 
brother. Then, human and superhuman, he shall be the poet." 



William Alfred Hough, whose muse could most fittingly have 
been a gleeful sprite singing of youth and love, struck in tender 
chord and read in tender tone, 

"THE MOTHER'S LAMENT." 

In every dream I see my baby's hands : 

They reach to me, and will through all the years. 
Until I clasp and kiss them in the lands 

Where we shall find no sorrow and no tears. 
I look across the plain and o'er the sea, 

I gaze across the hot and burning sands, 
Yet everywhere, in plant and flower and tree, — 
I see, in all, the same entreating hands. 

The little hands, the dimpled hands, 

The dainty, loved, entreating hands, 

My baby's hands. 



WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

In every dream I see my baby's eyes. 

I clasp my hands, — I can not cry aloud — 
My baby's eyes as though from paradise, 

Smile tenderly from every summer cloud. 
They smile on me through mists of pearly tears, — 

Sobs tremble in my throat — my poor heart cries, — 
And yet I know that dear day slowly nears 
When I shall kneel and kiss those tearful eyes. 
The gentle eyes, the sweet, blue eyes, 
The dear beseeching, tearful eyes, 
My baby's eyes. 

In every dream I see my baby's hair. 

I can not twine the curls about my hand, 
Nor braid the golden floss with loving care 

And tie it with a dainty silken band. 
As once I did, with only words of praise. 

But this, from now, shall be my earnest prayer. 
That sometime, in the slowly coming days, 
I once again may curl the golden hair. 

The silken hair, the wavy hair. 
The shining, sunny, golden hair. 
My baby's hair. 

This side of all I see my baby's grave. 

Where dainty hands and hair will soon be dust. 
And I — I live to hope that what I gave 

To God I '11 see again, — For He is just. 
And yet — my tears fall on the new-grown sod, 

I can not pray — I am no longer brave ; — 
And when dim-eyed I try to look toward God — 
I only see my baby's little grave. 

The tear-dewed grave, the slim, small grave, 
The flowered, daisied little grave. 
My baby's grave. 



Mrs. E. S. L. Thompson, whose versatihty of talent places her 
among the popular writers of the day, presented a narrative poem, 
entitled, "When Jim Cum Home." Her verse in negro vernacu- 
lar is characterized by unusual harmony of feeling and expression, 
as is evidenced by the melody : 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 
'TIS CHRIS'MAS IN DE CABIN. 

'Tis Chris'mas in the cabin, 

Tho' I am far away ; 
'T is Chris'mas in the cabin, 

I kno' de bressed day. 

I kno' de mock birds singin' 
Mak' glad de happy spot. 

An' all de flow'rs am bloomin' 
Aroun' my little cot. 

De flow'rs my Liza planted, 

De golden gelsemine, 
De pink Azalia blossoms. 

An' honeysuckle vine. 

Her po' ole han's am folded, 
Her weary wo'k all done. 

But yet the blossoms lifting 
Smile up to greet the sun. 

'T is Chris'mas in de cabin, 
De chimes sweep fro' de do', 

Whar used to be dar foot-steps 
My chillun curp no mo' ! 

De fir' place hoi's no embers, 

De do' is open wide, 
De winder 's dim and dusky 

Whar de moonlight po'd its tide 

'T is Chris'mas in de cabin. 
And de watah murmurs deep, 
" De banjo's strings am broken, 
'T is time to go to sleep ! " 

De pleasant ribber singing 
By de Bend so fa' away — 

Whar I use' to fiddle, honey, 
De livelong Chris'mas. day. 

I 's singin' now — jis' lis'en ! 

Wid 'Liza by my side 
I dim' de starry stairway 

Of bressed Chris'mas tide ! 



103 



104 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Mr. Clarence E. Hough gave in recitation "Thoughts for a 
Discouraged Farmer." — James Whitcoinb Riley. 



Mary E. Cardwill presented an exegetic paper upon 
"THE PLACE OF THE DIDACTIC IN VERSE AND FICTION." 

"Conduct is three-fourths of life and its largest concern." — Matthew 
Arnold. 

"The hand can never execute anything higher than the character can 
inspire. " — Emerson. 

At the beginning of this paper, two difficulties arise. First : 
The subject will, to many, seem trite and lifeless; how can it be 
made vivid, generally interesting, and debatable ? Second : The 
subject is exhaustless. How can it be brought within proper limits 
for discussion ? 

A brief outlook over the literary field, however, will show that 
the subject is not trite, for never before has it represented so unmi.s- 
takably a living issue. 

About two out of every three readers, according to library 
statistics, confine their reading chiefly to novels. Yet probably 
these readers, or a like proportion, share their novel or other prose 
reading largely with poetry. So it may be said, without exaggera- 
tion, that two-thirds of the reading public, for their literary diet, 
feed upon poetry and fiction. No satisfactory evidence is given 
that this proportion will decrease. Nor is it by any means certain 
that its decrease would be for the mental, moral, or spiritual good of 
mankind. 

Again, the rapidly increasing number of writers of verse and 
fiction is perhaps a prophecy of a time when all other kinds of liter- 
ature will be crowded out. If this should come to pass, it will be 
because creative literature, so-called, can and will subserve worthily 
the uses of all literary work. 

Literature is before all else an interpretation, and a verbal ex- 
pression of life. " Conduct is three-fourths of life." With conduct, 
therefore, is literature's largest concern. 

If, in this connection, we make the didactic primarily a syn- 
onym of conduct, the place of the didactic in literature, especially 
in what may be in time universal literature — verse and fiction, is a 
question which calls for an answer from every writer. His answer 
will sound the key note to his own ultimate achievement. 

The tendency of creative writers of the period is to attach 
themselves to one of two schools — to that which has for its motto 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. I05 

"Art for art's sake only," or to that which believes in a definite, 
ever-present, painfully-predominate moral purpose. Yet both of 
these schools are more or less false in idea, and they are rarely, if 
ever, strictly true to their assumed ideals. 

"Art for art's sake," rightly interpreted, expresses an incontro- 
vertible truth- Not art for mere expression's sake, but art for the 
sake of its ideal, "not the ideal of the artist, but of the art." 
This statement is not given as original, yet it may need explanation 
as well as a wider acceptation. With no consciousness of differ- 
ence in his aims or aspirations, the earnest worker in every literary 
field accomplishes much better work at some times than at others. 
If he simply follows his own ideal, should not his will-power, all 
other conditions being equal, suffice to keep his work always on 
the same high level ? It will be answered that in these compara- 
tively rare best moments, the writer is led by something without 
himself, over which he has no absolute control, and which he 
delights openly or secretly to call inspiration. Is he not also uncon- 
sciously drawn towards something inexplicable, extraneous to, and 
higher than his own ideal, the ideal of his art? 

If, however, it is true that in the moments of his most genuine 
work, when alone his talent or genius fills its measure, he is simply 
the passive instrument used by inspiration to bring his art nearer to 
its ideal, wherein lies the moral responsibility of the writer? 

Inspiration in its entirety is one of nature's mysteries. Yet its 
first effect upon the writer is generally understood to be an exalta- 
tion of feeling, not merely an excitement of the emotions, but a 
lifting up of the moral nature, through an irresistible impulse to- 
wards a more spiritual atmosphere. This impulse implies a basal 
motive power. Is it not the power, or the eternal, as Matthew Ar- 
nold terms it, which "makes for righteousness," the power upon 
which character also is based ? 

According to these premises, literature, like every other art, is 
environed by a beautiful three-fold chain of truth. Art has a right 
to exist for art's sake only, or for the sake of its ideal. Art to ap- 
proximate most closely to its ideal must be inspired. Inspiration, 
like conduct, is based upon the power which "makes for righteous- 
ness," a power inseparably connected with the morally didactic 
element in human life and character. 

Aside from inspiration, which exerts through poetry and fiction 
an indirectly didactic influence, the function of creative literature 
seems to be, in a greater or less degree, to teach. For if it does 
nothing more than give innocent amusement it puts in motion a 
moral force, and compasses the results of a moral lesson. 



Io6 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 



"Above all ^ther arts ; that sympathizing with everything it leaves no 
corner of wisdom or knowledge unrecognized." 



Of poetry, Leigh Hunt says it is its boast 

"Above all ^ther arts ; that sympathizing with < 
sr of wisdom or knowledge unrecognized." 

Sidney Lanier, one of the most discerning of modern critics, 
says : 

"The greatest work has always gone hand in hand with the most fer- 
vent moral purpose. For example ; the most poetical poetry of which we 
know anything, is that of the author of Job and of David and his fellow 
psalm writers. * * * The moral purpose with which these writers were 
* -;:- * surcharged, instead of interfering with the artistic value of their 
product,- has spiritualized the art of it into an intensity which burns away all 
limitations of language and sets their poems as indestructible monuments in 
the hearts of the whole human race." 

This essential relation of the didactic to poetry predominates 
so strongly in all of the world-acknowledged masterpieces, that it 
is impossible to consider their authors otherwise than as actuated by 
a conscious moral purpose. 

The poems of Homer, it is true, are sometimes declared to be 
wanting in a strictly didactic quality. \"et the Iliad, as a recent 
critic suggests, has never before been so widely read, or what is 
more significant, so thoroughly appreciated as by the Christian peo- 
ple of to-day. The truly heroic element in human character, which 
goes so far in making up the moral stature of a perfect man, appeals 
more effectively to our highly civilized Christian era than it could 
have done to a less advanced, less morally-sensitive age. From 
cover to cover the noble lesson of heroism taught by the Iliad, 
turns its pages drenched with the blood of the Trojan war into a 
moral tonic for all students and lovers of Homer. 

Dante is as consciously and unswervingly, though as a rule 
tenderly ethical, as he is supremely ideal. We could not imagine 
the Divine Comedy without its author, as a censor, holding aloft his 
golden scales of justice. 

Milton wrote Paradise Lost that he might justify the ways of 
God to man. 

By these typical epic poets, conclusive proof seems to be given 
that the didactic used consciously has an essential part in the epic 
art's ideal. To write a worthy epic, the poet is under a sort of 
constraint, not only to choose a high theme, but by its treatment to 
make an appeal "to the higher side of human life and strengthen it." 

The work of the drama is to bring a picture of humanity in 
action vividly before our eyes. To do this it has been said : 

"A great poet should be free from all prepossessions ; his one business is 
to see life steadily, and to represent it faithfully as it is " 

Schlegel gives a truer and more literary as well as a more philo- 
sophical interpretation of the drama when he likens tragedy and 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. I07 

comedy, respectively, to earnestness and sport. His definition of 
earnestness, as "the direction of our mental powers to some aim," 
provides a reason for the immeasurable superiority of the tragic to 
the comic poets of classic times — the one exhibiting the workings 
of the moral, the other of the animal part of human nature. But 
when the line drawn so sharply between ancient tragedy and com- 
edy was almost obliterated in the more perfect modern drama, the 
world was given the plays of Shakespeare, every one of which shows 
the "direction of the mental powers to some aim," has some lesson 
to teach, the highest, if not most observable, where the art is con- 
sidered most perfect, as in the " Tempest," or " The Winter's Tale." 

Thus the conclusion is forced upon us that the dramatic art's 
ideal also includes the consciously used didactic as an essential 
element. 

Lyric poetry in its nature implies the absorption of the poet in 
his own feelings to so great an extent that he is, as a rule, oblivious 
to the impression he creates. Yet lyric poetry covers the widest 
range of knowledge and experience. The mood of its highest in- 
spiration is a moral or spiritual fervor, or an intensity of feeling 
concerning human experiences, which, understood by all, moves 
universal sympathy. 

Ruskin accurately describes Wordsworth's " distinctive work " 
as "a war with pomp and pretence and a display of the majesty 
of simple feelings and humble hearts, together with high reflective 
truth in his analysis of the courses of politics and ways of men ; 
without these, his love of nature would have been comparatively 
worthless." 

All of Tennyson's poetry, polished and gem-like in its artistic 
perfection, creates the impression that England's Laureate is ever 
pursuing a lofty mission. 

Browning's worshippers bow at his shrine because of what 
seems to them his constant aim — soul development. In no other 
poems, perhaps, do we feel so decidedly the thrill which only a 
genuine poet can give united with so forcible and quickening an 
impulse towards diviner things. 

Purely didactic jjoems and direct didactic phrases are, how- 
ever, foreign to the ideal of poetic art in general. 

Pope, the highest type of all distinctively didactic poets, seems 
at times to be genuinely inspired. But his poems with a i)ur])ose, 
are like the frame of the didactic without its living soul. Perfect 
with a finely mechanical j^erfection, their lessons are cold, cut and 
dried maxims, not the heart-warm utterances of high inspiration. 

Compare one of the best of Pope's aphorisms, 

" Honor and shame from no condition rise, 
Act well your part, there all the honor lies. '" 



Io8 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

with a few lines from the Diad which even Pope's artificial ren- 
dering could not spoil : 

' ' Ye Greeks be men ! the charge of battle bear, 
Your brave associates and yourselves revere ; 
Let glorious acts more glorious acts inspire, 
And catch from breast to breast the noble fire " 

Pope's sentiment is a moral truth and is so accepted by his 
readers to whom his lines are directly addressed. But they do not 
move*the heart, nor stimulate men necessarily to high thoughts 
and noble actions. They are not poetry. Homer's lines, put into 
the mouth of a brave general, are instinct with life. Our pulses 
beat in sympathy, and we are fired with the same martial spirit, 
which it was their apparent object to arouse in the soldiers to whom 
they are supposed to be spoken. They afford a good illustration 
of the true place of didactic phrases in epic, and also in dramatic 
poetry — as an absolute part of the narrative, or as a revelation of 
character. 

But suppose we compare Pope's lines with these, almost as di- 
rectly didactic, of Browning : 

" Knowing ourselves, our world, our task so great. 
Our time so brief, 'tis clear if we refuse 
The means so limited, the tools so rude 
To execute our purpose, life will fleet. 
And we shall fade and leave our task undone." 

The difference here is one of feeling. Browning is not giving us 
simply an ethical lesson, but is voicing a heart belief which is 
clamoring for expression. 

Genuine poetry may exist, it is true, in which the didactic in- 
fluence is most obscure, and much didactic literature of a high 
kind has in it apparently little or nothing akin to poetry. Still the 
unworldly enthusiasm of spirit that lies at the root of all noble teach- 
ing, whether it demands poetical expression or not, is in its essence 
poetical. 

Poetry, touching the whole gamut of human emotion and ex- 
perience, is the most comprehensive of all arts. It offers, therefore, 
the most effective means of didactic expressions, and is by its very 
nature the most universal of teachers. Its province is to educate 
mankind ; to provide a sure, subtle and delightful way for the en- 
trance of truth into the' mind. And it may be said with emphasis 
that no artistic beauty or merit can cover or conceal the hollowness 
of verse wanting in that exalted and exalting quality which Matthew 
Arnold calls seriousness, and sometimes by the still better name of 
truth. Noble poetry is truth fitly spoken like "apples of gold in 
pictures of silver." 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. I09 

Truth — truth to Hfe or to human nature is also the basis of all 
fiction of real worth. Fiction may effect a moral or an immoral 
purpose, simply by being a true or a false picture of life. Strictly 
speaking, therefore, there is no such thing as unmoral fiction. 

Scott has been placed under Carlyle's and a later critic's ban, 
because of a lack of a definite moral purpose in romances which 
have afforded a delightful and healthful mental stimulant to three 
generations of readers. How much more appreciative is another 
critic's reference to the Waverly novels, as exercising "among the 
most beneficent energies of art," in that " they rest our hearts," and 
" recreate us for all work." They do still more : They take their 
color from the highest of moral qualities — universal sympathy, or a 
warm, true heart-feeling for man and his Maker, and for all God's 
creatures. Their influence is to make more, or less, impressive 
the worth and beauty of heroism, manliness, and honor. They serve 
a historic purpose also by breathing life into the past, while they 
teach indirectly God's own lesson that life is eminently worth the 
living, and that humanity per sc, through its innate merits demands 
our respect, sympathy, and love. 

Scott's case may be made stronger by contrast with the typical 
so-called ////moral novelist of to-day — Henry James. Abounding 
in cynicism and satire, he delineates with icy calmness the weak- 
nesses, imperfections, and unloveliness, as well as occasionally 
some of the better characteristics of human nature. We admire 
perforce, the mechanical perfection of his art, but if we did not as 
a rule turn with resentment from his superficial views of life, we 
would probably gain from him that contempt for humanity which is 
a certain sign of moral degradation. His work must be classed as 
/wmoral, rather than as ////moral. 

Fiction, from its earliest beginnings, has been used largely as 
the sugar-coating of some moral or religious lesson. Yet in many 
of the old romances, notably the Arthurian legends, the toothsome- 
ness and pleasant flavor lies in the lessons. 

It was left, however, to the modern world to make a picture 
of every-day life the ''vehicle of a moral purjjose." The first 
novelists were naturally often realistic and intentionally didactic to 
a nauseous degree. The very' title of the first English novel — 
strictly so-called — " Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded," is offensive to 
the better taste, the higher refinement, and the more advanced 
stage of morality of the nineteenth century. Yet it would be a 
mistake to overlook the genuine moral ([uality, and probable good 
results of this and similar novels of the eighteenth century. It is 
painful to imagine a time when they were needed, yet their specific 
use created a new and powerful instrument for reform. They were 



no WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

the more effective because they respected the Zeit-geist — the spirit 
of their time ; a time which demanded a reform in the superficial 
morality of manners, rather than in the deeper morality of the 
heart. 

We call the works of Richardson and his contemporaries 
classics, and we tolerate, even admire them as the first fruits of 
modern fiction. Similar works produced to-day would find few, if 
any, readers. Like the pictures ^of Hogarth, by exhibiting the 
ugliness of vice, and the bold contrasts between the material results 
of good and evil, they served to arrest the disease of immorality of 
that period. The world now refuses to accept moral lessons so 
coarsely and openly thrust upon it even by fiction. Yet much the 
same superficial view of things, usually without the same excuse of 
a good intent, is presented in a more refined way by the so-called 
naturalistic novels to-day so prevalent. Hence, we have a " Zola," 
a " Ouida," an " Amelie Rives," and their numerous imitators, 
who, professing to give us pictures of life, and scorning an avowed 
moral purpose, show us men and women in their moments of folly, 
weakness, or passion, yielding to temptations, and gratifying their 
baser instincts in a matter-of-course way. Such novels, overlook- 
ing the better part of human nature, the divine aspiring element, 
misconceive life and man's part in it. Their influence is, and 
must be almost invariably immoral. There is no good reason for 
their existence. 

The innate truth to nature of many of the best works of mod- 
ern fiction has attached to them the term realistic. Could any 
term be more appropriate, according to an admirable definition of 
realistic fiction — that it combines the natural with the ideal? Of 
these novels it may be said, however, that it is their ideal elements 
which not only stamp them as superior, but also enable them to ex- 
ert their purest and most elevating influences. 

An ideal standard of life and conduct is becoming more and 
more generally recognized as man's best impetus and guide towards 
higher living. The time is probably not far distant, if it has not 
already arrived, when Christian people will universally accept the 
beauty of holiness as a more practical and helpful text than the 
ugliness of sin. This hopeful condition of things may be attributed, 
in part, to the widely read master-pieces of modern fiction, which 
by their method of presenting their predominant idea, are made so 
incomparably greater than the first novels, whose didactic tendency 
and aim they share. 

Thackeray used his trenchant blade of satire, not only to hew 
down the shams of society, but also to lay bare the beauty of the 
genuine and the natural in human relations and character. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEF.TINC. Ill 

Dickens, heart-full of some needed reform, battled for it, often 
with rude weapons and rough strokes, and usually with a sure and 
immediate effect. Yet his books are most impressive because the 
evils they picture are made to appear abnormal, contrary to the de- 
sires of man in geperal, and obnoxious to his natural instincts. 

"George Eliot" and Hawthorne concern themselves with out- 
ward conditions, only or chiefly as connected with character, and 
with a revelation of the inner life of the individual. 

" George Eliot," in books, often too sadly realistic, produces an 
elevated impression of humanity by making prominent the brave 
soul-struggles of men and women under the many varied, trying, 
character- testing circumstances and conditions of life. Drawing the 
materials for her creations from all classes of society, she leads us to 
feel that in every one, perhaps even in the most degraded, there is 
an element akin to the divine, a something worthy of the love 
which unites man to man and man to God. Through this charac- 
teristic which we like to call Shakespearian, " George Eliot" wards 
off our contempt from characters whose depravity she paints in true 
and ineffaceable colors. 

Hawthorne's lesson is, that outward circumstances, glowingly 
impressive though they may be, are but little more than shadows 
when compared with the life of the spirit. He also teaches that the 
battleground of individual life is within. 

But both "George Eliot" and Hawthorne have at times per- 
mitted themselves to be mastered by their themes. And the melan- 
choly of the one and the morbidness of the other have detracted 
from the force of their high lessons. Both are most perfect didac- 
tically, if not in every other way, in their shorter stories. "George 
Eliot " reached a high artistic beauty while she taught her noblest 
lessons in "Silas Marner," "Amos Barton," and "Janet's Repent- 
ance." Hawthorne, in "The Great Stone Face," placed fiction at 
the highest point it will probably ever reach, at least in short story 
form. In each of these stories the moral lesson is not only plainly 
apparent, but to its working out, in the highest way through the 
develoi)ment and regeneration of the individual, all the energies of 
the author is bent. 

In fiction, as in poetry, a work, to be a master-piece, must have 
the dramatic, or rather the tragic cjuality of earnestness. It is this 
quality which has given Tolstoi and Meredith their high rank, and 
made " Robert Elsmere " the most widely read and most frecpiently 
discussed book of the past year. It is the direction of their mental 
powers to some sincere aim that has lifted so many American novel- 
ists to a respectable place in literature, and has given them pre- 
eminence over English and other foreign novelists, of equal, or 



112 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

superior literary merit. American novelists, perhaps, as a rule, 
make the mistake of following too closely after a didactic purpose. 
Yet it is a lack of moral earnestness, and of a high moral principle 
which places the seal of an intrinsic inferiority upon such novels 
as those of Thomas Hardy, for example. Novels which from an 
intellectual and purely artistic point of view are of unquestionable 
excellence. 

But the place of the didactic in fiction is not confined to the 
exertion of a good moral influence, though that is its broadest and 
greatest work. Probably no kind of fiction is more generally fas- 
cinating than a good historical novel ; consequently, by no other 
means can historic facts and conditions be made so strongly and 
permanently impressive. There seems also to be a peculiar moral 
force connected with the turning of history into romance. The 
idealizing of past events, perhaps by removing what is dross and 
superfluous, effects a revelation of higher historic truths — the un- 
derlying motives which moved men to action. Scott and Kings- 
ley, showing us the working out of historic events through indi- 
vidual character, provide a healthy moral stimulus while vitalizing 
the past into a natural and impressive scene. 

Fiction is invading more and more frequently all of the diff'er- 
ent domains of the intellect and of specific knowledge. Reference, 
direct or indirect, to art, literature, natural science, music, philoso- 
phy, and religion, enter into the substance, or serve for the orna- 
mental touches of almost all good, modern novels. The wide 
culture in this way displayed by their writers must inevitably pro- 
duce some of the effects of culture upon their readers. 

The didactic in its broadest sense has indeed become to so 
great an extent a ruling element in fiction, that nothing evidences 
more clearly than in the manner of its use, the skill of the artist. 
The fault of what may be called the didactic school to which so 
many novelists of the period belong, is the subordination of the 
story to the lesson, or underlying theme. An impression of the 
theme, as a necessary part of the narrative, is thus prevented, 
and the result at best is that received from a sermon or a lecture, 
instead of the unconscious absorption of truth from an attractive 
and moving picture of life. 

A didactic purpose in fiction is served first of all, and most 
delicately, as well as cbgently, by a high general tone. But the 
place of more or less directly didactic language is of the utmost 
importance. Didactic phrases, direct moralizings, homilies, aphor- 
isms, and proverbs, are the hand-maidens, or the pitfalls of fiction, 
according to their skillful or unskillful use. What would be stig- 
matized as preaching in a moral essay, if judiciously introduced as 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. II3 

a necessary part of a narrative^ is often readily accepted and 
produces good fruit. Even detached thoughts with a didactic 
bearing, if in harmony with the tone of the book, not infrequently 
are the source of great additional pleasure, while at the same 
time enriching the reader's mind with useful or noble truths. 
"George Eliot's" originality as a writer lies perhaps primarily in 
her peculiar manner of constantly using moralisms in the devel- 
opment of her characters, and in connection with her incidents. 
More than that, the necessity seemed to be laid upon her to create 
such characters as "Mrs. Poyser " and " Dolly Winthrop," whose 
special business is humorously or seriously to teach moral lessons. 
Still further, the abounding, beautiful, and elevating detached 
thoughts in "George Eliot's" writings seldom, if ever, seem super- 
fluous. The aphorisms of Thomas Hardy, on the other hand, 
though they have gained him the admiration of a high class of 
readers, are really artistic blemishes, through their excess and 
through the attention they attract to themselves, independent of 
the story. When " Swithen St. Cleve " says: "In these days the 
secret of productive study is to avoid well," we do not connect the 
words with their eighteen-year-old speaker, but we are impressed 
with the shrewdness and aphoristic ability of Hardy himself. His 
aphorisms are always like maxims, and would be as pertinent and 
more appropriate by themselves, used with an avowed didactic 
purpose. The right or wrong use of the didactic in fiction is best 
tested by its fitness. A perfect poem and a perfect novel are like 
perfect manners or a perfect character : all of their parts are essen- 
tial to the whole, and none should be so conspicuous as to obscure 
the great general effect. 

The suggestion may be repeated that its spirituality of tone is 
the measure of a novel's as well as a poem's highest worth. " Zola " 
and the materialistic school may attract many readers and have con- 
siderable temporary power. But the overwhelming testimony of 
multitudes of novels of great merit is that " to be carnally minded is 
death," to be spiritually minded is life. Lasting fame and influence 
demands apparently of this branch of creative literature also, a fol- 
lowing after an ideal whose ruling element is a power which makes 
for righteousness. 

The most impressive lesson in this study of the place of the 
didactic in verse and fiction, is that creative writers can best regu- 
late their teachings by their own habitual tone of mind. The noble 
in thought will be inspired nobly. A noble character has for its 
inseparable companion noble thought. To be a "true poem" in 
his life, was Milton's idea of a poet's best preparation for high crea- 
tive work, and his effort to realize this idea, no doubt made possible 



114 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

the inspiration resulting in Paradise lost — all things considered, the 
greatest poem in the English language. 

In spite of many great apparent exceptions, the weight of evi- 
dence, in literature, sustains Emerson's lofty and beautiful rule for 
all art — "the hand can never execute anything higher than the 
character can inspire." 



A "General Discussion" upon "The Four Greatest Ameri- 
can Novels " resulted indefinitely, but afforded an entertaining fea- 
ture of the session. It was participated in by Prof. J. C. Ridpath, 
Dr. H. W. Taylor, Judge C. F. McNutt, J. P. Dunn, Jr., Presi- 
dent Parker, E. P. Chaplin, Mary A. Leavitt, Mary Hartwell 
Catherwood, Eleanor Stackhouse, and Mrs. E. S. L. Thompson. 

Adjourned. 



Afternoon Session. 



TABERNACLE. 



The Afternoon Session of the Second Day of the Convention 
opened at the Tabernacle at i : 30, with President Parker in the 
Chair. 

Mrs. Mary A. Leavitt, whose verse composition is familiar to 
western readers, presented a suggestive poem in blank verse, enti- 
tled 

"A MID-SUMMER DAY WITH NATURE." 

When over-wearied with the cares of life, 
The heated turmoil of the city's mart, 
Go forth into the woods — the cool, calm woods. 
And know the restfulness that nature yields 
-. Unto the weary heart. Leaving the crowd, 

The eager, selfish throng of worldly ones. 
Go seek some shadowy solitude, within 
Nature's great temple, hushed, and dim ; here, mid 
The grandeur of her leafy corridors. 
May o'er thy spirit steal a holy calm, — 
Winning thy heart from wasting care, the world 
And self, to pour its all of adoration 
At His shrine — The Great All Father's, who hath 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 

Made our dwelling place so wonderfully fair. 
Go, where His soft south winds may gather up 
The treasured fragrance of ten thousand flowers, 
Only to waft their garnered sweets to thee. 
Go where whispering leaves hold converse sweet 
And low, whose softly sighing flow shall lull 
Thee into dreamy reveries and rare. 
The verdant foliage, waving overhead. 
Shall kiss thy cheek with its cool, dewy lips ; 
And trees, a-tremble in the far, clear blue. 
Shall beckon to their shade, and whisper " Rest ! " 
Nature's ministry can soothe the turmoil 
And unrest that riot in the human heart. 
Her gentle hand glides o'er the jarring chords 
That vibrate at the rude world's harsher touch, 
And tunes them into restful harmony. 
How tenderly her myriad voices 
Murmur unto the wounded heart ! And how 
Her soft and mystic touch of peace 
Can charm the quivering pulse of pain 
Into a tranquil flow of quiet joy ! 
Of all her winsome arts to soothe and cheer, 
Most potent is her sweet-voiced minstrelsy. 
The music-gush of rills 'mid wooded banks ! 
As flow their waters 'mid the bloom, so flow 
Their silver chimes and lulling interludes 
Thro' all the harmonies of nature's song. 
Swept by the phantom fingers of the wind. 
Each vibrant leaf has learned some voiceful strain 
, — Softer than any harp aeolian. 
Like summer rain, down faintly echoing trees. 
So flows a finer mist of melody 
From quivering leaves, beneath the touches 
Of the wind. 

And on, thro' woodland paths, where bud and flower 
And shrub dot all the way like stars ; and all, 
O'er arched by giant trees in fullest chords 
Of leaf on leaf — all sighing with the breeze. 
Oh, what a haze of harmony is here ! — 
Where every leaf's a tiny instrument 
In Nature's sweetest orchestra ! 
The rippling cascade, roaring waterfall, 
Each dancing on its way, more loudly swells 



"5 



Il6 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

The murmured song. How they, as keeping time 
To their own tune, throw up their jeweled hands 
In noisy glee ! — then dash a shower of pearls 
Into each flower's cup, and haste away ! 
Bending to catch the gift, yet sorrowing so 
That 'mid their bloom the waters may not stay, 
The flowers — bathed in tears, breathe their adieu ! 
List ! Is it true that angels sometimes visit 
Us, and, hovering near on unseen wings. 
Sweep from their golden harps music exquisite. 
Such as angels only know ? List to that burst 
Of happy song, from yonder towering elm. 
Whose deep'ning foliage 'tis a joy to see ! 
Nature's own choristers ! I hail the birds, 
The joyous birds ! Naught but a seraph's harp 
Could weave cadence more sweet than echoes thro' 
The leaf-embowered halls, and azure dome 
Of Nature's many-mansioned house. 

I bless thee from my heart, thou 
Warbler free ! for oft when shades of care had 
Engulfed my soul in gloom, and all the ills 
Of life were, with their leaden weight, pressing 
My spirit down, thy song of grateful praise 
lo Him who "clothes the lilies," and, without 
Whose care "a sparrow may not fall," has been 
A sweet reproof to my o'er-clouded heart. 
Didst thou, in some far upward flight, soar near 
The heavenly gate, and, with impatient wings 
Beating the golden bars, oh, didst thou list 
The angels' song, to bear it back to earth ? 
For those who may not soar, art striving still 
That " new song " to recall, — whose chords, or trills. 
Or choruses 't would be an ecstasy 
Of wonder e'en dimly to remember. 
Or faintly to re-echo ? . . . .... 

If to commune with Nature, and adore 

The power whose glory she proclaims, yields 

To the spirit quietude and peace, how 

Must its inmost depths be stirred with joy. 

When, after all life's weariness, it rests 

In fadeless bowers, and by that river fair 

Whose ever-flowing music maketh glad 

The dwelling-place of Nature's gracious God ! 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 1 17 

Mr. W. W. Pfrimrner — Recitation in dialect. 

To write the story of a song would make one of the sweetest 
biographies in the world. Mrs. Marie Louise Andrews approxi- 
mated to this in a resume of the writers and sentiment of the 

" POETRY OF THE ANTE-WAR PERIOD OF THE WEST 
AND SOUTH," 

Too young, as we all are who are present to-day, to have had 
personal recollections of the ante-war period, yet to many of us, 
there comes a faint echo of those days, so dim, indeed, that occur- 
rences during the war are the more deeply limned upon our memo- 
ries, and all other contemporaneous happenings seem trivial and 
indistinct. 

I fancy that the veteran, who, in his declining years, lives in the 
recollections of camp and of the field, has a feeling somewhat akin 
to contempt for the, to him, less fortunate members of our on-coming 
generation as he revels in delightful memories of the general 
superiority of all things mundane " befo' the wah." To him, every 
thing from a turnip to the moon, is invested with this glamour of 
'*auld lang syne," which dwarfs the present status of every day life 
into insignificance. 

At the risk of appearing ancient or provincial, I do not hesi- 
tate to declare that I recollect that in those days which tried 
men's patriotism, the other States of the Union became suddenly 
conscious of the fact that Indiana was situated upon an elevated 
plateau, the surrounding country seeming to slope m all directions, 
and smce that time, as before, the cultivated Hoosier has continued 
to be the peer of any man in the educated universe. 

The London "Times" bewailed the fact that thought and cul- 
ture had come to a standstill on account of the Crimean war. How 
many nameless poets, painters, sculptors. Da Vincis sleep in heroes' 
graves because of the civil war only such names as Theodore Win- 
throp's can attest. If the test of the poet is the power to take the 
passing day, with its news, its cares, its fears, as he shares them, and 
hold it up to a divine reason, till he sees it to have a purpose and 
beauty, and to be related to the eternal order of the world, and his 
sensibility is so keen that the scent of the elder blow is event enough 
for him, then those who first hewed the shaft and laid the architrave 
of literature in the new West, were poets born. A nation that is 
still in the process of creating a new literature, must necessarily sow 
some wild oats, and plow them under, before the soil is enriched 
unto great fertility, and we are still in the era of a national literary 



Il8 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

development. If, as a nation, we were slow to cast off the thraldom 
of the Elizabethan age of literature, we were not backward in sup- 
plying appreciation for Carlyle, Tennyson, and the Brownings. 
When Emerson first emerged from the truly American chrysalis of 
poetic fancy and addressed a poem to the " Humble Bee," it was 
called "a foolish affectation of the familiar," and the critics were 
amazed at his audacity ; now, our own Riley and Joaquin Miller 
place such pictures of real Western American life before us, that we 
smell the burning prairies, and hear the protesting hum of "Old 
Fessler's Bees." 

With the setdement of the New Purchase, the muse, like Satan, 
"came also;" the first poem being read at Marietta, O., July 4th, 
1789, by Return Jonathan Meigs, an attorney at law, the theme be- 
ing a prediction of the development of the country which has been 
more than fulfilled. Newspapers had gradually been established in 
several places in the West and Southwest from 1787 to 1815, but it 
was during the latter year that original Western poetry was occa- 
sionally published in "The Western Spy," at Cincinnati, although 
songs of more or less poetic merit were sung among boatmen, 
hunters, and soldiers previous to that time. Of the one hundred 
and fifty-two poets of the ante-war period whose names and achieve- 
ments are chronicled by Coggeshall, sixty were residents of Ohio, 
two of Iowa, one of Kansas, four of Wisconsin, five of Michigan, 
thirteen of Illinois, three of Missouri, two of Minnesota, fourteen 
of Kentucky, and twenty-three of Indiana. In a sketch of this 
sort, it will only be possible to refer very briefly to these pioneers 
of song, as the subject is entirely too prolific to be handled at one 
time. For to even suggest the title of poems written in the West 
and South from the time of the poet artist, Washington Allston, of 
Charleston, on the Carolina coast, and later, the poet-priest. Father 
Ryan, to Joaquin Miller, singing near the Golden Gate, the air is 
vocal with the music of the poetic songsters of the ante-war days, 
and the task of writing of all of them, and of listening to the chron- 
icle, would be too burdensome for endurance. As a matter of course 
the newspaper was the patron of the literary art in this new world. 
"The Western Spy and Cadet" and "The Olio," both rivals, were 
published at Cincinnati, and the encouragement given by these 
newspapers to local literature was the prime cause of the organization 
of the first Western Association of Writers, known as the Philo- 
mathic Society, composed of such men as Junius and John H. 
James, Robert T. Lytle, Lemuel D. Howells, George Mackey Wil- 
son, and Edward L. Drake. Afterward, Thomas Pierce, Peyton Short 
Symmes, William Henry Harrison, and Daniel and Benjamin Drake 
were elected as members of a branch of the Association, and in this 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. II9 

circle of choice spirits, the enterprise of offering a medal, of the 
value of fifty dollars in gold, for the best poem written in the West, 
originated. Twelve poems were received by the committee, com- 
posed of John D. Godman, Benjamin Drake, and John P. Foote, 
and the prize was awarded to the writer of the poem entitled "The 
Muse of Hesperia," yet so modest was the author, that he did not 
claim the award, and it was ten or twelve years later that it was 
definitely settled that the poem was written by Thomas Pierce. It 
is too long to be quoted here, but it contained an appeal to local 
poets, to make use of the opportunities for the original study and 
execution of themes suggested by the romantic scenery of the 
Western Hesperian valleys. 

The author was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, on Au- 
gust 4, 1786. In 1813 Mr. Pierce emigrated to Cincinnati, where he 
married Elizabeth Neave, and was subsequently engaged with her 
father in merchandising. His satrical odes entitled "Horace in 
Cincinnati," were both popular and meritorious, and were collected 
and published in book form in 1822 by George W. Harrison, form- 
ing in reality, the first book in Western poetry. Among his shorter 
poems, "Youth and Age," "The Dandy," "To a Lady," "The 
Drama," and his last one, " Knowledge is Power," were the most 
popular. Mr. Pierce was an honored citizen of Cincinnati. His 
death occured in 1850. 

The earliest and most noted woman who wrote in the West at that 
time, was the gifted Julia L. Dumont. She was born at Waterford, 
Ohio, in October, 1794, and was married to John Dumont in 1812. 
In 1814 they removed to Vevay, Indiana, where she opened a 
school, being particularly successful in imparting instruction to all 
sorts and conditions of minds. One by one death claimed her 
children until her head was bowed in grief over six graves. Her 
health failed in consequence, and she died on January 2, 1857. 
Her best ])oems were published in "The Literary Gazette," of Cin- 
cinnati, the most popular ones being "The Orphan Emigrant," 
"Poverty," and "The Pau])er to the Rich Man." 

In this sketch it were almost superfluous to refer to one who is 
so well known as George D. Prentice, yet, as a patron of literature 
in the West and South, Mr. Prentice stands preeminent. Born in 
1802 in Preston, Connecticut — in rugged, cold New England — 
his nature was as sunny as the South where the greater part of his 
useful and eventful life was spent. Mr. Prentice was eminent as a 
master of blank verse as evinced in "The Flight of Years" and 
"Mammoth Cave." A many-sided man was George D. Prentice; 
as a paragraphist, he is still the envy of the rising journalist ; as a 
politician, he was far-seeing and out-spoken ; as a wit, like Falstaff, 



I20 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

he was also " the cause of wit in other men ; " as a poet, pure and 
pathetic, fitting the rhythm to the thought perfectly. His poem, 
" To an Absent Wife," is the embodiment of ideal conjugal affection ; 
and his " Lines Written at My Mother's Grave," beginning 

The trembling dewdrops fall 

Upon the shutting flowers ; like souls at rest 

The stars shine gloriously ; and all 
Save me are blest, 

sweetly breathe the tenderest filial love. Mr. Prentice died in 1870. 

As a contemporary of George D. Prentice, it is appropriate that 
William D. Gallagher should be mentioned here. Like Mr. Pren- 
tice, Mr. Gallagher was also known as a politician, his advocacy of 
Henry Clay for president in 1830, while editor of the "Backwoods- 
man," published at Xenia, Ohio, bringing him into notoriety. Lit- 
erature, however, was a more congenial pursuit than politics, and the 
establishment of the " Cincinnati Mirror," a literary journal of high 
merit, followed in 1831. Ill health compelled him to abandon it, 
but upon a partial recovery, he established the "Western Literary 
Journal and Monthly Review," but shortly discontinued it. "The 
Wreck of the Hornet " first attracted attention to Mr. Gallagher's 
genius, and made his reputation. The poems entitled "The Mothers 
of the West," and "Song of the Pioneers," breathe an admiration 
for the early settlers which is inspiring. Mr. Gallagher still lives in 
Louisville, Ky., and honors the Western Association of Writers by 
being a member. 

We now turn to John Finley, a native of Virginia, but after- 
ward an adopted son of Indiana, having lived respectively at Rich- 
mond and Indianapolis. Mr. Finley is most generally known by the 
Nevv Year's Address written for the Indianapolis "Journal" in 1830, 
entitled "The Hoosier's Nest," a poem very familiar to native 
Indianians. His "Bachelor's Hall," with which school children of 
the last generation are familiar, as a model for scanning purposes, 
was widely circulated in America and England with Thomas Moore's 
name attached to it. Mr. Finley cared little for his own rhyming, 
and preserved scarcely any of it. In fact, none of the writers of 
that period wrote for posterity, and it is only now and then that the 
chronicler can catch glimpses of the poetry of such men as Salmon 
P. Chase, who wrote "The Sisters," "Themes," "To a Star," and 
some fine translations of Latin odes ; of William O. Butler, of 
Kentucky, who wrote the poem beginning 

" O, boatman, wind that horn again," 

and of Thomas Shreve, who emigrated to Ohio from the District of 
Columbia in 1830, and assisted in the publication of " The Mirror," 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 121 

furnishing both critiques and poetry for the paper, such as "My First 
Gray Hair," " Midnight Musings," and "To an Indian Mound." 

Amelia B. Welby left a deep impression upon the popular 
mind. She was born in Maryland, but lived the best part of her 
brief life in Louisville, Ky. Her "Rainbow" is familiar to all 
within hearing to-day ; "The Dew Drop," "Pulpit Eloquence," 
and "The Mournful Heart," continue to be deservedly popular. 
She died in 1852, in the thirty-third year of her age. 

In 1836, the Cincinnati "Mirror" published a poem entitled 
"Jerusalem," which was pronounced "beautiful, exceedingly beau- 
tiful," and a poem entitled a " Dirge of Napoleon," written by a 
young man before he was seventeen years old, was declared by the 
New England "Galaxy" to be " daringly and surprisingly original." 
These poems and "The Battle of Tippecanoe," which was in- 
scribed to William Henry Harrison, were written by William Ross 
Wallace, a native of Lexington, Ky. Mr. Wallace was an especial 
favorite of Edgar Allen Poe and William Cullen Bryant. He died 
in New York in 188 1. 

Rebecca S. Nichols was born in New Jersey, but she has been 
a resident of the West for more than forty years. Mrs. Nichols' 
earliest poems were published in the " Louisville News-Letter," over 
the signature of " Ellen." She also published a series of sprightly 
sketches for the Cincinnati "Herald," over the name of "Kate 
Cleveland." In 1851, under the patronage of Nicholas Longworth, 
her later poems entitled " Songs of the Heart," and " Hearthstone," 
were published. Mrs. Nichols was the intimate friend of Otway 
Curry, both giving and receiving inspiration. Among her most 
noted poems are "The Lost Soul," "The Philosopher Toad," "A 
Lament," "Wee Willie," and " Baby Bell," the last two being in- 
scribed to the surviving children of a family of seven. She now 
resides in Indianapolis, and was present at the last convention of this 
Association. 

Little is known about the personality of George W. Cutter, be- 
yond the two fateful events of having been born in Kentucky, and 
having been a member of the Indiana legislature. Mr. Cutter's 
"Song of the Steam" is familiar to every child who has attained the 
rank of the Fourth reader, while the "Song of the Lightning" is 
scarcely less known. His other poems are full of fire and patriotism ; 
noticeably: "E Pluribus Unum," " Buena Vista," written on the 
battle field, and "Never! Never!" Beyond these, the divine pas- 
sion, too, has inspired him to write as artistic gems as the following : 

Who has not knelt at beauty's feet 

And felt the very air more mild, 
The sky more soft, the earth more sweet. 

When woman sighed — when woman smiled ? 



122 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Who has not felt love's sway sublime, 

Till joy could only speak in tears — 
And tested, in a breath of time. 

The rapture of a thousand years ? 

Of the earlier writers in the Western country, the names of 
John M. Harney, of Bardstown, Kentucky; Micah P. Fhnt, of 
Mississippi; Peyton Short Symmes, of Ohio; William R. Schenck, 
of Cincinnati ; James Hall, of Illinois; Charles Hammond, of Ohio; 
Elijah P. Lovejoy, of Illinois; Harvey D. Little, James H. Perkins, 
and Charles A. Jones, of Ohio; John H. Bryant, of Illinois; Ed- 
mund Flagg and Anna P. Dinnies, of Missouri ; Hugh Peters, of 
Indiana ; Thomas Gregg, Erastus S. S. Rouse, and Frederick W. 
Thomas, of Ohio, and a host of others, stand out in bold relief as 
the poetic painters of local life and scenery, when the Western soil 
was new. 

Mrs. Laura M. Thurston, who died in New Albany in 1842, 
was a sweetly artistic painter of the landscape beauties of the Ohio 
valley. Forceythe Willson and his gifted wife, two poetic souls too 
spiritual for a long earthly sojourn, sang in concert along the 
beautiful White Water river. Amanda Louisa Ruter Dufour, an 
honored member of this Association, reveled in the picturesque 
grandeur of the Knobs near New Albany, and was inspired to 
mingle in the closest sympathy with nature and poesy. Her " Rev- 
eries " would establish her reputation as a poet, if she had written 
nothing else. Mrs. Dufour was born in Jeffersonville, Indiana, in 
1822, and now resides in Washington, D. C. 

Benjamin F. Taylor, of Chicago; Peter Fishe Reed, of Indian- 
apolis; Jedediah Hunt and Jane Maria West, of Ohio; Sidney 
Dyer, of Kentucky; Francis Dana Gage, of Ohio; Luella Case, of 
Indiana; Hannah Arey, of Ohio; Lewis Cist, of Missouri; Sarah 
J. Howe, of Kentucky; Horace P. Biddle, of Indiana; Lois 
Adams, of Michigan ; Eleanor P. Lee, of Mississippi ; Catherine 
Warfield, of Ohio, and Henry William Ellsworth, of Indianapolis, 
lived, and sung also, in those days when " the gods were abroad." 

Isaac H. JuHan, of Richmond, Indiana, sang of " Boone in the 
Wilderness," " The True Pacific Line," and addressed a stirring 
appeal "To the Genius of the West." Horace S. Minor, who was 
called the Western Shelley, sang and sorrowed in the new country, 
and laid him down to rest in Illinois, in 1850. Caroline Chamber- 
lin, of Oxford, Ohio, was mistress of the combination of art and 
poetry to an unusual degree. Her "Picture," and the "Soul's 
Visitants," are particularly charming to other poets. 

Orpheus Evarts, too, took up the lyre, "befo' the wah," and 
still thrills our listening ears with poesy's sweetest strains. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 1 23 

Mary E. Nealy has touched the hearts of sorrowing mothers 
on both sides of the Atlantic with the pathetic poem of "The Lit- 
tle Shoe." 

WiUiam W. Fosdick won his poetic laurels with "Lute and 
Love," and "Light and Night," in i860. 

Netta V. Victor drank the " Wine of Parnassus," of which she 
wrgte, and gave to the world "Body and Soul," "Two Pictures," 
and "Compound Interest." Mrs. Victor was also the author of 
"The Tallow Family in America," and "Mrs. Alvira Slimmen's 
Window," which convulsed the continent thirty years ago. 

Frances F. Barritt evinced a poetical conception of high order 
in "The Palace of the Imagination." 

D. Carlyle Maccloy, Edward D. Howard, Obed Wilson, Celia 
Burr, Benjamin T. Gushing, Abram S. Piatt, Emeline Johnson, 
Abbey Allin Curtiss, Thomas W. Hoit, William Hubbard, Mary A. 
Foster, and William E. Gilmore, all traveled the steeps of Parnassus 
about the same time, and it was a "goodlie companie." 

In 1840 Coates Kinney came from New York and settled at 
Springfield, O., as one of "The Heroes of the Pen," and encour- 
aged halting humanity to move "On! Right On!" We had 
expected him to be with us to-day, as hopeful of heart, and as vigor- 
ous of mind as when he first heard the "tinkle on the shingles of 
the rain upon the roof." 

John Gibson Dunn, Helen Bostwick, Horatio F. Powers, 
George York Welbourn, of Mount Vernon, Ind., a protege of 
Governor Hovey, and even the Governor himself, Louise Chit- 
wood, and William H. Lyle were among the giants of those days. 

Will Wallace Harney, of Indiana, never touched a false string 
of the poetic lyre. His " Buried Hope," beginning 

"Fold down its little baby hands, 
This was a hope you had of old ; 
Fillet the brow with rosy bands, 
And kiss its locks of shining gold," 

is daintily exquisite, while "The Old Mill," and "Jimmy's Woo- 
ing," are brimful and heartful of poetry. 

A little later in the march of time appear the names of Emma 
Alice Browne, and of Ella Caldwell, whose poetry is so sweetly 
rhythmical. There, too, are Lizzie Beebe, Hattie Tyng, and Cor- 
nelia W. Laws with "The Empty Chair," "Six Little Feet on the 
Fender," and " Behind the Post," awakening sweet, shadowy mem- 
ories of home life. 

Cora Mitchell Downs, Samuel V. Morris, William D. Howells, 
Albert Barnitz, William S. Peterson, Sallie M. B. Piatt, Isa Eber- 
hart, Louisa McGaffey, Carrie Pennock, Granville Ballard, L. D. 



124 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Waterman, Carrie Hibbard, George Crowell, and Mary Short all 
began to court the muses contemporaneously. 

Fortune and fame unprecedented, have come to Susan E. 
Wallace and her gifted husband since she wrote "The Patter of 
Little Feet" more than thirty years ago. George A. Stewart, Julia 
Amanda Wood, Horace Rublee, who attributed his poetizing to 
youthful inexperience, Mattie Griffith, Rosa Vertner Johnson, 
Frances Locke, Anna Rickey Roberts, Florus Plimpton, James 
Pumnill, Mary Wilson Betts, Elizabeth O. Hoyt, and Albert SutUffe 
were all morning stars of Western poetry. 

Still later in the poetic firmament, just peeping above the 
Eastern horizon, appear such lights as John Hay and Joaquin 
Miller, who were both born in this State, Philip Bevan, Sanford Cox, 
Mrs. D. M. Jordan, Maurice Thompson, and Cla^nce A. Buskirk, 
but I am ever mindful that these are but the merest fledglings yet. 

This necessarily statistical sketch would be incomplete without 
reference to the Cary sisters of Ohio ; Phebe, with her quaint ver- 
sion of the ' ' Psalm of Life : " 

Tell me not in idle jingle, 

Marriage is an empty dream, 
For the girl is dead that 's single, 

And things are not what they seem. 

While the sweet Christian spirit of Alice's poem, entitled 
"Reconciled," flows soothingly into every sorrowing heart. 

In Indiana there are two well-known poets, dear to every 
Hoosier heart; one has passed through "The Open Gate" into 
the paradise beyond ; the other still lingers with us, dreaming away 
the present moments in cheerful recollections of the past — Jonathan 
W. Gordon and Sarah T. Bolton. We can all recall that afternoon 
of the intellectual love-feast during the first convention when Major 
Gordon introduced our own loved Sarah T. Bolton, as "the queen 
of all poets." Major Gordon was the first one to respond to the 
circulars sent out looking towards the organization of this associa- 
tion, and during its formative process, no other member was so 
zealous concerning its aims and its needs as he. Alas ! he was the 
first of its members to "join the choir invisible." 

In close relation to Major Gordon — indeed, the relation was 
that of father and son — looms up the towering form of Stephen S. 
Harding, sitting in total blindness at Milan, Ind., waiting for the 
last message. Of him Major Gordon wrote : 

Thou wast the frien' o' truth and right, 

The steadfast foe of wrongfu' night. 
And dared it ever to the fight, 

Wi' nane to back thee ; 
Where ilka, base, ignoble wight, 

Was sure to' attack thee. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. I25 

Enow ! I see thee blin' and old, 

Wi' conscience clear and self unsold, 
Still hawding truth above the gold, 

That gars men bicker. 
And in the cause o' justice bold, 

To make it sicker. 

Were it not for the youthful appearance of our honored Presi- 
dent, I might be tempted to Hsten to the Western Froissart, and 
believe that he, too, wrote i)oetry in the ante-bellum days; but we 
all know that if he did, that 'rime has heeded the petition to " touch 
him gently," for "The Cabin in the Clearing" was published only 
last year, and we rejoice with him that 

" 'Tis morning, and the days are long." 



Mrs. Alice Williams Brotherton, whose works are characterized 
by their spirituality of feeling, contributed the following poetical 
narrative, which was read by William Alfred Hough : 

"C.EDMON." 

Caedmon the cow-herd, poor and dull and old. 
For many a year had tilled the niggard soil, 

Tended the cattle, driven the sheep to fold 

For Streaveshalch Abbey. Yet was all his toil. 

His daily drudgery and meanest care. 

Sweetened by holy living and constant prayer. 

He sat one night, as often he was fain. 

Among the hinds in hall : as it befell 
With Master Steward and all the motley train 

Drawn thither by the great conventicle, 
Page, groom, and yeoman mingled round the hearth. 
The night waxed old and wilder grew the mirth. 

" Let each," the steward cried, "sing to my lute 
In turn, some strain to grace our reveling ! " 

A dusk Italian in a tarnished suit 

Caught up the lute, and straight began to sing. 

With rolling eyes, wreathed smiles and amorous sighs, 

A sonnet made to some fair lady's eyes. 



126 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

The rude Northumbrian giant, equerry 

To York's good Bishop, next in tones so hale 

And strong they shook the rafters with their glee, 
Trolled a gay catch in praise of nut-brown ale. 

And tossed the instrument to the blue-eyed. 

Blue-mantled Norseman lolling at his side. 

Who sang, with kindling eyes, a saga wild, 

Of vikings fierce who swept the Northern sea ; 

Pert pages piped of love and the king's child 
Who mated with the "squire of low degree;" 

Stout men-at-arms shouted the war-songs old 

That stirred to battle-frenzy warriors bold. 

Rude was the verse and little skilled the touch 
That stirred the lute-strings ; but to Caedmon this 

Seemed perfect verse and melody — even such 
As angels chant or blessed saints in bliss. — 

And now the lute drew nearer to his seat, 

Abashed he sat, and shuffled with his feet. 

"Good Master Steward soon must call on me," 
Sighing he said, "And now, as oft before, 

The look of scorn and mockery must I see 
Upon all faces ! " Gazing on the door 

Silent he rose, and swiftly sped away 

To fling himself upon his truss of hay. 

" O dullard ! fit to herd with beasts in stall ! 

ignorant boor, whose tongue can find no word 
When song and jest are ringing through the hall, 

And every popinjay's glib tongue is heard 
Lilting the praise of love and war and wine ! — 
Their themes are naught ! O could these hands of mine, 

Roughened and stiff with labor, find their way 

Among the lute-strings, making melody, 
Methinks a fitter subject for my lay 

1 'd find than that of yon rude giant's glee ! " 
Then his heart smote him that he had been rueing 
The lack of that which scarce were worth the doing. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. I 27 

And "Pardon, Lord," he cried, " the coward heart 
That drove me forth to-night. Next time I '11 sit 

Silent beside the hearth nor slink apart, 
But bear my comrades jeers and saucy wit. 

Better within my heart God's praise to sing. 

Than use His gifts to grace mad reveling.'" 

Now whether dream or vision who shall say ? 

Wide open swung the heavy door of oak, 
Past stall and bin one entering took his way 

To Caedmon's cot, and bending o'er him spoke 
To the poor cow-herd, who gazed marveling ; 
" Caedmon, I pray you now arise and sing ! " 

'What, I?" he cried aghast ; "/sing? — who fled 

But now from yonder hall to 'scape the jeer 
Of the mad roysterers i* — to hide my head 

'In shame and herd me with the dumb brutes here ? 
I sing ? What know / of your poet-words. 
Who till the stubborn fields and tend the herds ? 

With a glad smile the stranger answered : "Nay, 
The beasts are of God's making, and the fields ; 

Into thine own heart look and weave thy lay ; 
The tiear at hand')a.\% theme the poet yields," 

And lo, it seemed to Caedmon that his tongue 

Was loosened, wondering he arose and sung. 

For a new light shone in upon his soul, 

And all things he had known from infancy 
Took on new grace and dignity, the whole : — 

Glorified on a sudden seemed to be 
The earth and sea and sky — the humblest blade 
Of grass that the Creator's hand had made. 

And all the lessons Nature loves to teach 

Her child, into his soul began to throng : 
The thoughts came quicker than the words, and speech 

Straight melted into melody. His song. 
More full and clear than that the skylark sings. 
Was "The Beginning of Created Things." 



128 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

And, as he carolled, crept into his song 
The melody of birds at matin-time, 

The rhythm to which the tide wave sweeps along, 
Beauty of sunrise and blue skies at prime. 

The tender glamour of the grey twilight, 

The grandeur and the majesty of night. 

He saw the uplands yellow with ripe corn. 
He heard the lark's loud carolling — as when 

He sought the plough-field in the early morn. 
The glory of the sunset marked again, 

As oft when plodding homeward through the woods, 

'Neath rosy clouds that swam in golden floods. 

The marvel and the mystery of life 

Took on new meanings ; nature's life and man's. 

In the new light, no longer seemed at strife. 

But each with each in-twined in God's great plans. 
"All is of God (he sang) and wl' are His, 

In praising him do all things find their bliss." 

"God is the worker of all miracles. 

His hand the blue roof of the sky unrolled 
Above this wondrous House of Earth, where dwell 

Mankind and His creations manifold. 
O, holy, holy, holy evermore ! 
Let all the earth the song of praise outpour." 

Ended the song. And lo, an aureole shone 

About the stranger's head. God's angel stood 
Confessed ; and, passing, spake in gentle tone : 
"May this, thy song, draw sinners to Christ's rood." 
Upon his bed the singer sank — to weep 
Until glad tears gave place to happy sleep. 

l' envoi. 

Therefore, O poet, since an angel first 

To Saxon tongue did teach the art of song, 

Be worthy of thine office. Lest accursed 

Be tongue and voice, keep well thy soul from wrong 

Walk humbly in the path St. Caedmon trod, 

Elect high priest of Nature and of God. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 1 29 

Dr. H. W. Taylor gave, with blackboard illustrations, the fol- 
lowing unique and instructive lecture upon the 

"ANTIQUITY OF AMERICAN DIALECTS." 

In so brief a lecture as this must necessarily be, I cannot enter 
into such exhaustive discussion of the various propositions as the 
subject demands. In fact, the bare propositions will almost be com- 
pelled to stand alone. Not that there is lacking material for their 
support. On the contrary, it will at some future time be shown, 
that the material is abundant, inexhaustible, and unobjectionable. 
With this explanation or apology, the subject will be at once pre- 
sented. 

What are superficially regarded as individual and accidental 
peculiarities in enunciation and pronunciation, are dialectic pecu- 
liarities, and doubtless precisely as unalterable as is the structure of 
the vocal organs. These, indeed, are so nearly alike in all human 
creatures as not to present striking differences to the casual observer. 
But upon close inspection and comparison there will be found as 
many differences as exist in external i)ersonal appearance. 

These differences in structure of the vocal organs need, in fact, 
to be very slight, indeed, in order to make those differences in vocal- 
ization that constitute the real differences in dialectic word sounds. 
Let any one carefully observe in themselves the slight differences 
observable in the position of tongue and palate in pronouncing the 
words keh'-d, kah'-o, kah'-o. In the first word the short "e" sound is 
given by having the tip of the tongue against the lower incisors and 
the lower jaw only slightly dropped in speaking. In the second 
word with short "a" as the vowel sound, the tongue is in the same 
position apparently ; but the under jaw is dropped perceptibly 
lower than in the first word. In the third word with the broad " j\" 
sound, the tongue does not reach the lower teeth — is too short, in 
fact — and the under jaw is very considerably lowered, opening the 
mouth much wider than in either of the other words. In these 
three vocal positions are to be found the causes of the dialectic 
differences between the Yankee, the Southern Tuckahoe, and the 
Southwesterner — now also the Westerner. In the South this latter 
personage is called "a. Ko'-hc'." Tuckahd and Kdhe being the two 
distinct dialects of the South, the former preponderating in the ex- 
treme South ; the latter in the middle South and the West. I am 
thus precise in order to lay the foundation for the successful demon- 
stration of the three American dialects, because it has been affirmed 
that there are no American dialects. 

Returning to the word kch'o with which these illustrations be- 
gan, let us drop the superfluous " h" and spell it ke'o — remember- 



130 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

ing that the primary accent is on "e" (eh), and only a secondary 
and subsidiary accent upon the "o." And, by the way, what a 
large number of word sounds have this long " o" sound after them — 
much softened and so modified that we do not notice it in speaking. 
But in the form of a suppressed " uh," or a softened long "o" this 
syllabic phonetization follows every word which is finished with 
opened lips! Ke'o", then, will be found to be the most simple and 
efficient way of spelling the Yankee method with the accepted Eng- 
lish word "cow." A "cow" in Yankee is a ke'o". In Tuckaho 
she is a ka'o" ; while in Ko-he, or in our Western dialect, she is, 
broadly, a ka'o". Pronounce these words slowly, so you may be 
able to separate the two vowel sounds and determine the fact that 
there are two. Then it is quite easy to perceive that these spellings 
convey the precise phonetics of this word in our three dialects. 

Oddly enough it will be found that these three words exist in 
the Greek /.so) — zuw — /jud — 'and they mean "to sacrifice;" "to 
offer burnt offerings ; " "to offer sacrifices." And since the cow 
was the animal generally used for sacrifices, the relations of the 
words are obvious. 

Not only so, but the Greek has y.o.'.oi" and /.lit')" — very much 
like the Scotch "kye" — in fact identical in a reasonable interpre- 
tation of sound in letters. But the word did not mean, originally, 
"sacrifices." The word k_ah for "car" is a current word in the 
South to-day In fact no city, and almost no community, is without 
the person who says " kah " for "car," "do" or " do'-ah" " for 
"door," and " f I-ah " for "fire." This is the Tuckaho; and you 
may know him by his inability to put the " r " sound at the end of 
any word. 

But the word "ka_" is Greek also.. And since the Greek 
y.a-'-a (k-y_ah puh) is said to have a "y" sound following it — 
there is good reason for believing that the word "cow" in all its 
dialectic forms began as " ka " — that is " car" in our Doric method 
of terminal "r's." The "cow," then, was the original "car," 
because she (he or it) was used in all " carrying processes." Oxen 
are, indeed, still the "carriers" of all primitive peoples. Even at 
this day, in all newly settled parts of the country, and especially in 
the South, where antique and primitive forms live longest — live 
ever, indeed, — the ox is the "carrier" of all heavy freightage. 
Singularly enough, in our English word "carve" is preserved the 
original Greek phonetics of this word — probably with an abbrevi- 
ated "-halve" added to it — " car-halve ;" to cut the "cow" in 
"halves," as in the ancient method with a beast. 

The word " k-yefful " prevails quite extensively in our dialects, 
being heard most frequently in the Tuckaho. To be " k-yefful o' 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. I3I 

you " is a phrase frequently used, on appropriate occasions, and has 
its origin in the Cireek /.zca/.n') (kej)halou) : so spelled in the Greek as 
to give precisely the same sounds that are heard in the phrase in our 
dialects at this day. This word is said to mean "the head" — that 
is the " careful " part of our anatomy. But it is doubtless a modern 
misuse of the word that makes it stand for the human head, as the 
following considerations will show. 

' I'.dt (literally " hed-e " — head of?) is said to be the same as 
Vt'Jj (e hed-e) and this means "form," "shape," "appearance," 
" countenance." The dialect phrase " that's a good head," has its 
vindication in the definition "idea," "notion," both of which be- 
long to this " hed" word. But I have brought up these two Greek 
words "hed" and " k-yefful " (head and careful — zo — /le^w/) in 
order to explode a notion that Plutarch had about the place where 
the magnificent Pelopidas fought his last battle. 

Plutarch's translator makes him say that the battle was fought 
on or near the mountain called cyno cephala (what wretched mis- 
spelling!) because the mountain bore, at a distance, a resemblance 
to two dog's heads. 

Some one has said that the Greek called all fruit "apples." 
That is nearly true. And he also called every animal a "hoss." 
Not only so but he called almost every other remarkable thing a 
"hoss." And it is very significant that in our American dialects 
almost every prodigious thing is a "hoss." If you are a powerful 
man, you are in dialectics "a plum hoss." A good dog is a "hoss" 
to hunt, or to watch, or to fight. This thing is a "hoss" and that 
is a " hoss. " In fact that adjective ' ' hoss " is used to describe every 
remarkable person or thing. 

It is probable that the Greek went even further in profuse use 
of this word, as I shall at some other time point out. At present 
I shall confine myself to the statement that he called all mountains 
and islands "hosses." Thus the mountain referred to was called 
the z'ji/6\- y.zffahi.i — that is the "kiln hos kephal k ; " or in our Doric 
form of English "the Careful Coon-horse Mountain!" This re- 
veals two curious facts, viz: that the "dog" was called a "coon- 
hoss" by the Greek, just as he is called a "hoss to hunt coons" 
by the woodsmen of the South-west — and that the Greeks must 
have hunted coons as our people of the flat woods hunt them now. 

If Pelopidas had known that it was the Careful Coon-hoss 
Mountain upon which he met the enemy, would not the significance 
of the name have warned him not to throw his life away in the very 
moment of victory by that rash and unnecessary single-handed 
charge upon a broken and dispirited foe ? 

While I am upon the subject of the Greek word "hoss," let 
me get a fling from the dialect side of letters in the statement that 



132 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

it is the origin of our plural personal "us." But I cannot stop to 
demonstrate this fact; but must hurry on to say that there is no 
reason nor authority for giving to the Greek "w" (d-ztcau'^) our "y" 
sound. It was short "li" and long "u" and no more. The 
Greeks had the best of long "i's" in their ac (ah-ee). And by the 
position of the " spiritus asper" in the word "Olympus" — iiAnii.- 
7:0? — we are bound to say that the jocund Dorian called this alleged 
mountain of the gods "ole hump hoss!" And why should this 
fact take any of the poetry out of it ? 

But what of Parnassus ? The Greek had a Dutch way of sub- 
stituting "p" for "b," as I shall show at some future time, beyond 
doubt. And this renders it uncertain whether the word was "Barn 
bosses" or " Barn-hays-hoss." That is the "Barren Hosses" or 
the "Barren hays hoss" — "hays" meaning "to pile up;" that is, 
to "stack" — hence hay-stack! "Barn Mountains" and "Barn 
Hills" are plentiful titles among our dialect people in our times — 
at least twenty of these unprofitable hills being in each of the 
Southern States. These renditions of "Parnassus" are fully borne 
out by the Greek spellings -afr^r^irn^- (parnhas'hos) and -af/<Ml/To<i 
(parnhasos) ! I might go on to play havoc with thousands of Greek 
names of persons and places — letting a great deal of curious light 
in upon their origin. But I must turn to what I shall term another 
series of "hosses," in order to show the correctness of the present 
dialect use of the word "hoss" in all its bearings — premising that 
the Greek said "hoss hoss" when he meant more than one "hoss." 
And this is the origin of our plural "s" and "es" — which, by the 
way, we spell "ess," but pronounce "uz." 

In our dialects the term "hoss yuh" means to arrest, to seize, 
to defeat in single fight; while " hosst im off" means to take away 
by force, &c. In the Greek, '</^;« (hos'ea' — hoss you) means among 
other things, "justice," "expiation," "atonement." Again, the 
general dialect use of "hoss" is borne out in the word "ts- (for 
<»T/7a) meaning "fame," "report," "rumor." 'OfT(T(i;j.a[ (hoss o' me) 
and 'onan'^za (hoss onto) mean to "augur," "foretell," "divine" — 
and these bear out the dialect uses in games of chance — "he's a 
hoss onto me" — foretelling the defeat of the speaker, and the tri- 
umph of the adverse party. 

Again in our dialects, "hoss im up" and "hosst im off" fre- 
quently refer to the violent death of the subject ; and we find '(XTrrta 
or oata (hos-ea — hoss yuh!) defined "funeral rites or ceremonies." 

^0(j()v (boson — hoss on) has the definition "as much as" and 
"how much." Thus "hoss onto me" (tifTo-yratj.at) was the Greek 
phrase as it is our dialect phrase for keeping tally. 

But to leave the Greek hoss (not, however, without calling 
attention to the fact that the ass [or mule] was called a xuao? [kill 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 1 33 

boss] — because be can kill any boss at work!) I sball go back in 
tbe lexicon to sbow bow we mispronounce and misconceive tbe 
word "angel" tbrougb our ignorance of dialectics. 

"G-yell" is a form in our dialectics for girl. "Gal" is 
oftener beard in tbe Attic — tbat is, in tbe Yankee; wbile "g-yurl" 
is in tbe Doric — I mean tbe Western or Hoosier dialect; and 
"g-yell" is heard in tbe .^^^olic — 1 mean tbe Tuckabo Southern 
dialect. Now it is to be remembered tbat tbe oldest paintings, 
pictures, and sculptures represent tbe angel as a young woman 
blowing a horn. 

Now with tbe premise tbat tbe yf^olian-Soutbern-Tuckabo calls 
a horn a "hawn," we are prepared to examine into tbe Greek con- 
struction of the word "angel." It is always spelled with broad 
"_a" — never with "haytah" -r/' — tbe Greek long "a" with 
which it would have been spelled if it had had tbe "ain'" sound 
in tbe first syllable. 1 may be pardoned for reminding tbe Greek 
student tbat tbe double "g" (/';') gives tbe "ng" sound to a sylla- 
ble. Tbe French get their "ongs" and tbe Dutch their "ings" 
from this bountiful source — although the latter, including the 
English, push tbe "ing" sound to a vast abuse, no doubt, as I 
sball hereafter show. 

With this much of explanation let me say that ' ay-ijs'/.ku) — 
bang-yelld (bawn g-yell ub) is in our English, plain and unmistakable 
^^ horn girl.'" Tbe girl with tbe born. Not a messenger specially. 
Not at all a messenger philologically. Simply a "bawn g-yell" as 
the Tuckabo would say; and a "horn girl" as we Dorians of 
Hoosierdom would say, and do say. If this takes tbe poetry out 
of tbe adjectiv.es "angel" and "angelic," let it go. At all events 
we will be rid of " flowers for our born-girl mother's grave" — and 
this will be worth all the actual sacrifices endured in the loss of this 
misspelt and misguided old Gr;eco-American dialect word. 

I might go on almost infinitely in this discussion of dialectic 
identities and simi'arities. But tbe limits of this paper compel me 
to a brief statement of a few of the innumerable examples of Greek 
words tbat are identical with our dialect words and phrases — iden- 
tical in sound and meaning, and always closely related in usage. 

A I'iaiJooj'y — abaddon — a bad un ! — "anti-Cbrist." 

A,3a'. — abae — a boy — "tender,"' "delicate." 

Ai3a^ — ;\bf\x — a box — "bench," "table." 

A,'iuo — abar — a bar — " a cake." 

Ai'iamo — abatou — a bah to you — a bar to you — "not to 
be trodden," " or entered," that is, barred to you. 

'Aii/i'.':t» — habrCzd — he breathes so — "to sleep from excess 
of food." 



134 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Afipo^iaro)^ — abro ba tOs — a braw bare toes — ''one who 
walks softly," "stepping lightly," "moving stately." This latter 
definition justifies the Scotch " braw " in this phrase. 

Aiaira — -de ae ta — the-I-eat-uh "diet." 

Afifioo'^ — a broon — a braw one — "rich," "splendid," "fair," 
"beautiful." The Scotch "braw" very evidently comes from this 
word. 

AfSjioraau) — a brot a so — I brought her so — "to go astray 
in the dark," "to rove," "ramble," "err," "mistake," "sin." 

Afijitr/'ji. — a broch ea — I brought you — "draught," "thirst." 

' AfSiin'MDv — hab run On — hob run nun — to play hob, running — 
"delay," "stop," "hindrance," "procrastination." 

' Ayyaiia — hang ga ra — hong gry — hungry — "stations," 
"relays," "stations of the post in ancient Persia" — that is, the 
places where hungry man and beast stopped to feed ! 

' AyyeArrj(f(>/ii>^^ — hawn g-yel hea for os — horn-girl-here-for-us — 
" the deliverer of an oracular answer," " a nuncio or envoy." 

'Ayy/)'.i — hang gres — hong gry's — the hungries — "grief," 
" pain," " irritation." 

AyUo-fTTon — a jelas-to-u — ah jealous to you — "rough," 
"rude," "morose," "sullen," "surly," "harsh." 

Aysvrjzv'f — a genathos — a jennet hoss — "having no origin," 
"base," "ignoble." 

Ayrjj Ayrj^ — ha ga, ah gas — how gay and I gaze — " admira- 
tion," "wonder," "astonishment." 

Ayryjwji — aganor — a gain er — "manful," "spirited," "brave," 
" courageous." 

'Ayy.ohi^ — hag kul os — hog k-yiiless — hog-careless ! — careless 
as a hog? — " not straight," "awry," "distorted." 

Ay/Md^ — aglaos — a glass — ' ' radiant, " ' ' glittering, " ' ' re- 
splendent," etc. 

'AyywT — hag nunt — hog'n-un'-ut — hogging on it — "break," 
"bruise," "shatter," "dash," "wreck," "violate," "infringe," 
etc. The Yankee says " ha'gn un't," for playing the hog ! 

Ay/ujfj.ory — a gno mon (ah know mo'n) — I know more than ! 
"ignorant," "foolish," "indiscreet," " unjust," etc. These defi- 
nitions" apply well to the fellow who uses the phrase often. 

Ayor^o'f — agon hos — a gd'-un hoss — a going hoss — "con- 
test" (between horses?) "spectacle," "games;" "the scene," 
"course," "circus !" (where the "go'-un hoss" f//^/z/ to be found!). 
Ayojv — agon — a-go-un — has the same definitions. 

Ay<i} — ago — ago! — "bring," "lead," "to move," "drive," 
" impel," — in short, all the dialect use of "it's a go," including 
"to consider," "to utter," "to pronounce," etc., etc., etc. This 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. I35 

word is well worth a larger attention than space will i)ermit me to 
give it. 

Ay/jo-'^cu — agrupnea — a group near — " watchfulness," "vig- 
ilance," " circumspection." 

Ayf/oj/TT'.'f - — agrdstcs — a-grow-steers ! — " herbage," " grass," 
" pasture." 

Ayom — ayij'.ir^ — a gwia — a-gwine — agoing — " road," "high- 
way," "street." "A gwine " is Tuckaho Southern for "a-going." 
And it is not the Negro dialect as many suppose. The Negroes 
speak whatever dialect the whites about them speak. They are 
imitators only. And the Guinea Nigger dialect is as different from 
the Southern dialects as are the Indian dialects of our country. 

' Ayy.iTTE'.ir^ — hang shee stee on — hang-she-stay-on — she stay- 
ing ! — " nearness," " relationship," etc. 

Ay/'i'i — angshos — anxious — "choking," " suffocation," etc. 

AyuivKrrfj'i — a gdn e stas — a go-un he stays — "wrestler," 
"boxer," "prizefighter," "champion," etc. 

Ayioit — jigor — a goer — " a crane. " 

Ai)s — ado and athe' — ah there! — "here." Also, doubtless 
ah here for "are here." 

Ar/Uf7fTio — a a thes so — ahe thes so — are thes so — dialect for 
"just so," — "to change the manners either in one's self or in an- 
other," "to disaccustom." Dialect example : ewer theng's gut tuh 
be t/ies so. 

Aij.ao) — amad — a mow — "to mow," "collect," "gather," 
"heap up." 

'Afi-fio)'^ — hambon — ham bone — "a boss or spike in the mid- 
dle of a shield," "any similar protuberance," "a knob," (such as 
the head of the ham bone ?). 

Aiiry^ — ji man — ah main — Hebrew, "amen!" Main for man 
is frequent in our dialects. 

The Tuckaho Southern word "skeenah"" for "scare," ex- 
hibits the different phonetics of the three American dialects in juxta- 
position with the same differences in the three principal Greek dia- 
lects, -/.ta {skea — sk-yah) was the .^iolic ; txiji and T/.riji (skeer 
and sk-yayr) the Doric or Doro-Ionic ; while tz«// seems to have 
been the Attic, just as the Yankee now says "scairt" in the past 
tenses; and as the Doric Westerner says "sk-yayrd." 

And to prevent a repetition let me say that I am prepared to 
prove that the Attic dialect is perpetuated in the Yankee ; the Doric 
in the Hoosier, and the .Kolic in the Tuckaho Southern dialect of 
our country, -y.'.o. (skc ah scare) meant a "shade," "shadow," a 
"ghost," etc., "darkness," "a specter." And from this is (t/at, (sket, 
skeet,) "to glide away" — that is, to glide away as a ghost. To 



136 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

" skeet " on the ice is good Greek no doubt, as it is good and 
current dialect to-day. Tiie medical term schirrus (actually spelled 
skiros !) comes from this word, and should be spelled as originally— 
skiros, and pronounced "skeer us" — meaning "marble" — that is, 
something white and ghostly. 

Atz — ate (Eng. ought to?) "for," "because." This word is 
also spelled "/'"" (orto), and means "of right" — as I will hereaf- 
ter show. 

Att'./.y/, itself analyzed by dialectic phonetics is "ought to 
care." And this "ought-to-care" disposition is a distinct trait of 
the Yankees as it undoubtedly was of the Athenians, who were the 
dudes of ancient civilization. While " ottuh " and " hadn't ottuh " 
are among the colloquial phrases most frequent on the Yankee 
tongue no7ti as probably in the days when some fun-loving Dorian 
named the famous city, in derision, " ought-to-k-yay I " 

'Aoihj (han da — our dialect howdy) — "talk," "discourse," 
"voice," "sound," "message," "news," "tidings," "greeting!" 

Au (mi — ah'-uh"). Tuckaho for Doric " airry " — only ap- 
proached by English " either." The Tuckaho says " ah'-hu" one," 
for "either one," and the Westerners "airry one." The word is 
defined: "again," " a second time," "over again," "back again," 
"in turn," "on the contrary," — that is "ahhu" way. 

Aurora (auton — our dialect "outun," — to put out, astooutun 
a lamp; also, " out of," as outun the house. 

This word seems to come from 'ea<o (he a o — he are), and 
among its meanings are "to stop" — as to stop a light from shining 
— "to pass by" — hence to pass out of, &c. 

'Efio-wj (he b_aon — he boun) is also from this word, meaning 
to "permit," "let," "suffer," — as he's boun to do so and so. The 
Dutch have tacked the " (V sound to the end of this word. The 
Greek didn't have it — nor will our dialects ever have it. 

Aozop.ohoj — aut to mol eo — ought-to-maul-you — "a deserter," 
"traitor," &c. 

Aur6<; — aut hos — the out hoss — "he," "she," "it." The 
out hoss because Tiot the speaker — that is, outside of the speaker. 

Acpucpsoj — aphaer eo — a fire you — I fire you. Our supposed 
slang "words and phrases are all to be found in the Greek. This 
word, ah-fire-you, means " to reject," " expel, " among other violent 
meanings — and fully establishes the validity of the phrase. 

Among other phrases illustrating this antique and classic origin 
of our so-called slang terms, is the word i3(iuArj<p(ip(i'f — boulafor os — 
bully for us ! It is one of the words from fi(io?.rj — boula — bully — 
meaning "to direct," "counsel," "advise," "decree," &c. IJouX- 
£ii)'^ — boule on — bully-un — is the Ionic for fiou'/M'^ — buUun — and 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. I37 

means "the will," "determination," — also "a council," "senate 
chamber," — a place where much "bullying" is yet done, no doubt. 

lii>i)hi(fi)i)(i'j — boulaforou — bully for you — "advising," "di- 
recting, " &c. ; serves to show the slight perversions of words in 
many centuries. lion/.r/tm/ru} — boulamaso — bully me so — is 
"hunger," "great hunger," — a thing that is able to bully the 
most determined of us. 

lUin/ii'i — bounos — boonos — the Scotch "a boon us," — means 
"hill," "high place," &c. ; the word in Greek had also the "a" 
before it : r,{ii»r^it^. 

HiKL{it'M — brabeia — "braw be you," — another Scotch term, 
means in Greek," "a prize, " " honorary reward. " 

l)l>ayu^ — brash us — brash as — "briefly," shortly," "in a 
few words. " This is wholly in keeping with the dialect use of the 
word "brash." And from \h.\% t^iiayuof — brasheon — bresh un — 
(a whipping with "a bresh" |n dialect) — meaning "strength," 
" power," " might;" also t^y^yj') and {Siizyjui. — bresh me. 

The Dutch (German) brot (bread) is from {inut-y, — "eatable," 
"esculent," &c. "Browse" also comes from [ijiiuo'i — broos — 
"to feed," "graze," "pasture." 

lij,oy(i:j.a'. — brush o mae — brush o me — " to howl, " " shriek, " 
"groan," — as when getting a "brushing." 

BufffT'.yu'S — bussinos — bussun us — from f3u<TiJ.a — busma — bus 
me — "stopper," "cork," "dam," "sluice," "shut up," "dose," 
&c. The relation to our dialect " bussun " is quite apparent. 

liavyw — ba-in-6 — bearing of — is defined "to walk," "move," 
"to go," &c. ; probably from i^w.v — b_a een — "the bare end" of 
the human creature — the " k-yefful " end being covered with hair. 

Mail).) — maon — my own — "a dwelling !" 

Mayifui.>ii^ — machamonos — march em on us! — "warlike," 
"brave," "courageous," "valiant." 

' E-'-zKhii).<v. — hepetellomae — hep ye tell o' me. " To enforce 
an order," "command." In our dialect there is a sarcastic phrase 
"git somebuddy to hep yuh tell me to do ut." 

^E-Kirt-tartfim — hepete pesteron — hep ye to pester on or pes- 
tern. " More agreeably," "delightfully," "pleasantly." That is, 
to hep to pester anybody is more pleasant than to be a pestern uv 
um alone and unassisted. 

' E-i-t-t<7-tin><; — hep-e te pester os — hep ye to pester us. Same 
as the last ; " agreeable," " pleasant," etc. ; but not for the pestered 
party, doubtless. 

K-:zE>%o — hepe-te-thf) — hep ye tuh tho — in book English — 
help you to throw — " to assault," " set upon," etc. 

' E->. <fa'.y(ry7or^ — he'pe fjien onton — hep ye fine onto one — 
"to show," "make appear," — that is to hep ye to fine anything. 



138 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

In our dialects we follow the Greek "fine" instead of the Dutch 
"find." 

E-i(/'<)y(><: — hep e SO gos — "faulty," "culpable." To "give 
him goss" is doubtless an amplification of this Greek word. 

//xryzr/»;y — pla k"tr6n — play kitron. This word which has 
been used clumsily to show that the fiddle bow is a modern inven- 
tion, in fact, shows by the light of our dialects that " play " kitron 
or zithern, means in the old Greek dialect, " a bow, " "to play on 
an instrument." 

///ryp/ — plag ya — in our dialects " plaig " is used instead of 
"pleg; " ~/^//''y means "plague," "affliction," etc. 

nXrjyury — • plagon — plSg'n — in book English " plagueing, " 
genitive plural of -/.rj.yrj. Which intimates upon what absurd and 
unphilosophical grounds our grammars are builded. Il/.rjy(r> — 
plagon — plague on. 

H?,soj — ple'o — "plow " in the Yankee dialect. Attic for -Xaoj 
"to navigate;" whence comes the phrase " to plow the sea, " — 
supposed by our rhetoricians to be a figure of speech. Ha ! ha ! ha ! 

///«rj-ryy9 — plastas — plasters — " smear," " paint," " daub ; " 
also "mould," "fashion." ///art-rov — Tuckaho "plahstun," — for 
" plastering." 

'Oi?£ — ho the — haw there ! — "a road." 

//(>U9 — p6' us — paw us — "a foot." 

Uai^wxca — pod o kea — pawed o' car — " swiftness of foot." 

IJodsMy — pod eon — paw deown ("deown," Yankee for 
"down,") — " the feet hanging to a hide ! " — that is, with the paws 
down — or " deown," as the Attic folk said. Our old word " pod- 
augur" should have been spelt " pawed-augur " in order to keep 
its full significance before the reader — since "paw," in Greek, 
means hand as well as foot, precisely as it does in the American 
dialects. 

Our word " poet " also has its origin in this " paw " word of 
the Greeks — and means simply " handy with his paw;" a.s -ocrj- 
rzyyr^ — p6 ea tech'n a — paw-he-a-tech'n-a — that is, tech'n it up 
with his paw! Uuiriy.tXrj — p6 ea kel a — paw ya keel a — paw- 
your-keel-a — is "a picture gallery in Athens," and indicates the 
origin of our word "keel" — referring to soft colored soap stones. 
But did the Greek painters paw with keel only ? This word also 
explains the meaning of -oXsimpyo's — paw-lay-march-hoss — paw 
meaning foot and hand — shows that the "paw-lay-march-hoss" 
was the " hoss " that commanded the Greek infantry. 

l£uw — seuo — shu uh ! — " to drive, " " put to flight, " etc. 

IrfAoo — sak 6 u — sake o' you — "a temple, " ' ' shrine, " ' * the 
consecrated olive," " a weight," " counterpoise. " Weight, counter_ 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. I39 

poise, etc., show the origin of our phrase " for the sake o' you; " 
since " counterpoise " and " weight " refer to feeling, affection, etc. 

-ifio/.lri — se bulla — see bully— "a sibyl," "prophetess." 
To see bully is certainly the chief characteristic of a prophetess. 

Iiya — scgji — Tuckaho for cigar — means "taciturnity," 
"silence," " to hold the tongue." -'.yai — segae probably had the 
soft " g, " and is literally see Joy ! 

Ilo/.r^mo — po-la-so — paw-lay-so — "to frequent," "haunt," &c. 
From this word comes the phrase "lay hand" or "lay hold" of 
anything; and -o/^i- — a city — is " paw-lease" or "leas" — leased 
grounds for the paws of everybody. Oddly enongh we preserve 
this word in our book-English in the word "pause " — stopping the 
"paws." 

//ovrof — p6n tos — p6n toss — the pond that tosses — "the 
sea, " "the ocean. " The Greek then said " pon" and " pawn, " as 
the Yankee and Hoosier now say. The " d " is a Dutch addition, 
and ought not to cumber our spelling. 

lJu-c(Ti» — pot e so — pot-he-so — "to give a drink," "lead to 
water," &c. " Pot" is part of the old Greek word — perhaps all 
of it. Hoziry — "p6t-6n," is the same. 

'A'hj^' — had as — hahd days — certainly not more significant 
than our phrase " hard times, " judged by its sound and its un- 
doubted relation to our Tuckaho "hahd days" or "hahd times." 
In book English this word is wretchedly mispronounced and mis- 
spelled, and like innumerable Greek and Hebrew words of impor- 
tance in theological discussion, clothed with mystery solely out of 
the tangle of misspelling and consequent mispronunciation. The 
Greek long ^' a" is /y as it appears in the last syllable of the word 
or^'i'. The "a " of the first syllable is usually broad. In fact broad 
and short "a " are dialectic differences merely; and it is probable 
that the Greek men of letters, recognizing this fact, made no sign of 
short and broad " a," and the word " hahd days " being one word, 
needed no duplication of the " o " which formed the end of one 
syllable and the beginning of the next. 

I might go on to write a volume of these illustrations (a work 
which I am, in fact pushing slowly forward) without exhausting the 
subject. But space for a longer article cannot be asked for in this 
the first published report of the proceedings of the Western Associ- 
ation of Writers. 

Judge C. F. McNutt and Prof. J. C. Ridpath followed by re- 
marks pertinent to the subject. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 14I 

Mr. Charles J. O'Malley contributed a lyric poem, which was 
read by Mr. Clarence E. Hough : 

"THE IDEALIST." 

Let him alone. He would make pure the world, 

And ye try not ; therefore he wars with you. 

His faith is but a staff wherewith he beats 

The hungry shadows from before his face. 

What is he but a poet void of words — 

A high-priest of white spaces and thin clouds ? 

The concourse of the ages pass by him 

And, where he sits, dawns break about his head, 

Limitless noons, and splendors of far suns ; 

And he hears music sung of days to be, 

Which ye hear not, and he would have ye hear. 

Let him alone. He only sits and shapes 

Serener mornings for the race of men ; 

We only dream. He, from the topmost clifi's. 

Shoots downward, dawnward with his clanging bow, 

And then runs on. Sometime, when we advance 

Unto the light, we shall find, here and there, 

White arrows sticking all along the path ; 

By him shot Eastward, from the heights above. 

Ages ago, to guide the feet to come. 

Then shall we hear his clanging bow far on. 

And bless him for the arrows shot for us. 



Hon. Hiram S. Biggs; President of the "Warsaw Summer 
Resort Association," extended a cordial invitation to the Western 
Association of Writers to hold their ne.xt Annual Meeting at Lake- 
. side Park. 

Judge C. F. McNutt moved that a rising vote of thanks be 
extended to President Biggs and the Directors of the Warsaw 
Summer Resort Association for their courtesy, hospitality, and 
gracious extension of the privileges of the Park to the members of 
the present Convention, and for the invitation to hold the next 
Annual Meeting of the Association at the same place. 



142 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Mrs. M. L. Andrews seconded the motion. 

The motion was unanimously carried. 

Mr. J. P. Dunn, Jr., moved that a Committee be appointed to 
prepare a book of biographies and sketches of members of the 
Association, to be owned by the Association. 

Judge T. B. Redding seconded the motion. 

The motion was carried. 

The following were appointed as Committee : 

Mr. Jacob P. Dunn, Jr., Mrs. Marie L. Andrews, Dr. H. 
W. Taylor. 

Adjourned. 



" We may live without poetry, music and art ; 
We may live without conscience, and live without heart ; 
We may live without friends ; we may live without books ; 
But civilized man can not live without cooks. 
He may live without books — what is knowledge but grieving ? 
He may live without hope — what is hope but deceiving ? 
He may live without love — what is passion but pining ? 
But where is the man that can live without dining ? " 

Poetry is not the derivative source of material strength, unless 
it coins material, therefore man can not live by poetry alone. And 
the members of the Fourth Annual Convention of the Western 
Association of Writers can expect no happier hours than were 
experienced at the 

ANNUAL BANQUET, 

which, like the ancient Greeks, who chose the day-time for their 
festal fetes, was given while yet 't was light, and, like them, enter- 
tained 'those who emulate the spirit of the Muses, and are adorned 
by the beauty of the Graces. 

The Banquet was given at the table-de-hote of the Bachman 
Brothers, at "Lakeside Park." 

Mr. Jacob P. Dunn, Jr., Toast Master. 

The feast of edibles gave place to a " feast of reason and flow 
of soul." 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. I43 

At a given moment, Mr. Dunn said : 

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : 

That which is uppermost in the minds of all, is the excellence of 
our entertainment. All have found delight in these breezy groves, 
and on these placid lakes, and have thoroughly enjoyed the drives, 
the boat rides, the springs, the pond lilies, and, most of all, the 
genial welcome extended to us by the people of Warsaw. Even 
the very name of " Warsaw " is a token of literary taste in an early 
day, as it was due to an appreciation of Miss Porter's " Thaddeus 
of Warsaw," by the pioneer who christened the village. 

'T is sure 

" There are cities and cities, 
There are great ones and small ; ' 

But just for to night, 
In our good humored flight. 
This Warsaw exceedeth them all. 

" Her sons are good fellows. 
Her daughters all fair. 

And like yon placid Lakes, 

They will ' take all the cakes.' 
But with us their beauty they share." 

Toast — ''Warsaw and Our Entertainers." 

Response — "Hon. H. S. Biggs, President "Warsaw Summer 
Resort Association." 

Toast — "Our Worthy President. " 

Response — Hon. Benj. S. Parker, President of the Western 
Association of Writers. 

Toast " DOLLARD." 

"With Dollard's name, in all its hero-hood, 
Henceforth is linked the name of Catherwood ; 
And French or English, we shall honor still 
The courage that for others braves all ill. 
And dies undaunted, for the love it bears 
To home and friends. Undying fame prepares 
For such her choicest garlands, such as we 
In Mary Hartwell's story send to thee 
Fair land of Canada, dear sister land and free." 



144 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Respotise — Mary Hartwell Catherwood, author of "The Ro- 
mance of DoUard." 

Toast — "The Ladies — we cannot do without them; we 
would not if we could." 

Response — Dr. H. W. Taylor. 

Toast — "The Gentlemen — how to dispose of them." 

Response — Marie Louise Andrews. 

For nearly a century the greater part of Indiana was a part of 
Canada, and ruled by the authorities at Quebec. Her Frontenac 
was our Frontenac. Her La Salle was our La Salle. Our M. de 
Vincennes, the founder of our first permanent town, was a former 
Lieutenant in the Canadian service. Since the days of the Coureurs 
des bois our paths have diverged, but still there exists strong sympa- 
thies in common, and whether the future progress in Canadian affairs 
shall be in the direction of annexation or independence, our best 
wishes are with her. The presence of a distinguished representative 
of Canada, affords the pleasure of a 

Toast io "Hon. John George Bourinot," Clerk of the House 
of Commons of Canada, "and Canada." 

Response — Hon. John George Bourinot. 

Toast — "To our Absent Friends." 

Response — L. May Wheeler. 



Then followed a steamboat ride upon Lake Como, which, 
through the courtesy of Hon. H. S. Biggs, and others of Warsaw, 
was made memorable as well as delightful. 



Evening Session, 
First Presbyterian Church, Warsaw. 



PROGRAM. 



"Song" by the Presbyterian Church Choir. 

«'Solo" — Mrs. Merhn Funk, of Warsaw. 

Lecture — " Canada and the United States; Imperial Federa- 




]1(m^ JfcuJZ^l^t:^,^^^ 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 145 

tion, Annexation, or Independence," by Hon. John George Bouri- 
not, of Ottawa, Clerk of the House of Commons of Canada : 

i[i ^ JjC ^ 5jC 

There was a time in the history of Canada when annexation 
to the American RepiibHc was, in the opinion of some Canadians, 
thought to be the only means of obtaining redress for undoubted 
public grievances, and for infusing new life into the industries of the 
country. Previous to the establishment of a liberal system of self- 
government in Canada, when political cliques, headed by crown 
officials, practically ruled the different provinces, there was a wide- 
spread feeling of dissatisfaction, which at last culminated in a 
rebellion. At this time Lord Durham admitted, in his able report 
on the state of Canada, that the people were wont to contrast the 
liberality of the public mstitutions and the prosperity of all branches 
of industry in the United States with the illiberal system of govern- 
ment and the poverty and depression that prevailed in the British 
provinces. The union of the tw^o Canadas and the concession of 
responsible government gave a new impulse to the political and the 
industrial life of the people, and the whole of Canada, especially 
the large and fertile province of Upper Canada, now known as 
Ontario, entered on a career of prosperity not exceeded by that of 
the Western States. The discontent that had so long existed among 
all classes of the people, with the exception of the official and aristo- 
cratic governing coteries, yielded to a general sentiment of satis- 
faction wnth the new order of things. Now and then perhaps a 
few disappointed politicians, or some enthusiastic youth, would issue 
annexation manifestoes, but the great body of the people never 
showed any inclination to unite their fortunes with their American 
neighbors. There is little doubt, however, that the political disunion 
that existed until 1867 among the provinces w^as not favorable to the 
creation of a national sentiment, or to the consolidation of British 
interests, and that the existence of a reciprocity treaty for ten 
years, from 1854 to 1864, was insidiously bringing about closer 
relations \vith the United States, especially in the provinces by the 
sea. There was no system of free trade between the provinces, 
whilst British North America had with the United States a free 
interchange with certain commodities which both countries largely 
produced. The intercourse of the maritime provinces of Nova 
Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, with the Ignited 
States, naturally increased year by year, and the people of those 
provinces were beginning to look upon that country as the best 
market for their fish, coal, and lumber, and the same may be said 
in a measure of the agricultural West. Had the reciprocity treaty 



146 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

existed for another decade of years, and had the provhices contin- 
ued isolated from one another, there would, in all probability, have 
grown up a strong annexation sentiment, the first evidence of which 
would have been a demand for a still more extended treaty, and 
probably for a zollverm or commercial union, an entirely impracti- 
cable scheme, whilst Canada remains politically identified with the 
British empire. Happily, as thoughtful men now believe, for the 
political interests of Canada, the statesmen of the United States, at 
this critical time in Canadian history, refused to renew the treaty 
when it expired by efflux of time, and it is notorious that some of 
them were animated in a measure by two considerations — first, by 
a desire to punish the Canadians for the sympathy a small section 
of the Canadian people had felt for the South during the war of 
the rebellion ; and, secondly, by the hope that they could gradually 
force the people into the conviction that their commercial interests 
were so closely identified with those of the United States that the 
best guarantee for their prosperity was to be found in a political 
connection with that country. At this critical juncture the states- 
men of Canada determined to unite the provinces in a federal 
union. The successful accomplishment of this great measure, to 
which English statesmen and publicists gave so cordial a support, 
not only welded the people into a close political union, which 
seemed impossible less than half a century ago, but has given all 
the provinces free trade and considerable commercial intercourse 
with one another. From that day to this no political party in 
Canada has ventured to raise an annexation cry. There may be 
a growl now and then from a few disappointed merchants or 
politicians in the maritime provinces, where, as I have just said, 
there has been created a close identity of interests with the New 
England States in consequence of the geographical situation of 
these countries and the influence of the old reciprocity treaty. 
As a matter of fact, the great population of the people of the 
Dominion are resolved on working out their own future apart from 
the United States, and on building up a new nationality to the north 
of the Republic. Canadians, for the last twenty years, have taught 
themselves to be independent, not only in a political but in a com- 
mercial sense, whenever practicable, of their powerful neighbors. 
Their efforts have been directed, as far as possible, to new avenues 
of trade, and to the building up of a large system of manufactures 
of their own, and to the cultivation, in every way open to them, 
of a spirit of self reliance. The present fiscal policy of Canada has 
never been favorably regarded in Great Britain, where a different 
theory of trade prevails and the manufacturers are very influential ; 
but there is no doubt that the men who framed and now support it 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. I47 

well judged the disposition of the people when they called it the 
" national policy." No happier designation could have been chosen 
to conceal any inherent weakness in the system than the one which 
represents the aspirations of a majority of the people, and especially 
of the youth of the country, for the consolidation of the political 
and commercial interests of the Dominion. The repeal of those 
clauses of the Washington treaty of 187 1, under which certain 
Canadian products were admitted free of duty into American ports, 
as an equivalent, in part, of the admission of American fishermen 
to the Canadian fisheries, has naturally led to a discussion as to the 
advisability of new commercial arrangements between the two 
countries ; but whatever may be the result of the discussion still 
going on in relation to this subject, it is quite certain that the dom- 
inant party in the Dominion is not likely to consent to any measures 
which will at all interfere with the operation of the national policy. 
Canadians are (juite ready to meet their neighbors in a spirit of 
compromise, and agree to such a treaty as will be mutually ad- 
vantageous, but strictly on the basis, as far as Canadians are con- 
cerned, that their fisheries or national interests will not be sacrificed 
or jeopardized in any way. It is needless to say that the people of 
Canada generally have not been a little irritated by the hostile atti- 
tude assumed toward them by certain politicians in and out of 
Congress since the repeal of the Washington treaty. The unwil- 
lingness of these politicians to agree to any fair commercial arrange- 
ment between the United States and the Dominion, on the basis of 
a reciprocity in the valuable fisheries of Canada, has naturally 
stimulated the national spirit of Canadians and shown them the 
necessity of working out their own future patiently and determin- 
ately, without placing any too great dependence on the policy of 
their prosperous and energetic neighbors, whose desire for territo- 
rial aggrandizement and commercial supremacy on this continent 
has more than once carried them, we believe, beyond the bounds 
of generosity and justice in their relations with the Canadian 
provinces. >i= * * 

The leading French-Canadians, especially the priests, whose 
influence over their flocks is perhaps greater than in any other 
Roman Catholic country in the world, have been always the first to 
point out the advantages of British connection on account of the 
security which it gives to their institutions as compared with the 
probable effect of the absorption into the ranks of the American 
States, as illustrated in the case of the remnant of French in 
Louisiana. In addition to this powerful French-Canadian influence 
in favor of the existing state of things, under which the French- 
Canadian population exercises so much weight — at times a suprem- 



148 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

acy — in the political councils of the country, there is another 
sentiment which, if it does not appear to flow in as clear and well- 
defined a current, nevertheless mingles with the stream of tliought 
in the British-speaking communities, and prevents it running in the 
direction of the United States. From the commencement until 
long after the close of the war of independence there was a steady 
influx of loyalists into the provinces, and especially into New 
Brunswick and Ontario, of which they were the founders. Some 
forty thousand souls in all made their homes in Canada, and laid 
the foundation .of that love for British institutions and British con- 
nection which has ever been a recognized characteristic of the 
Canadian people. It may be easily supposed that the descendants 
of these loyalists must form no inconsiderable proportion of the five 
millions of the people who inhabit Canada, and must exercise a 
silent, but none the less potent, influence on the destinies of 
Canada. Of the members of the Senate and House of Commons 
some thirty gentlemen, several of them the leading men in both 
parties, are directly descended from this class, and we find them 
acting as Lieutenant-governors and occupying important positions 
in every vocation of life throughout the Dominion. 

All these influences would probably amount to very little if 
Canada should be overburdened with debt, her great sources of 
wealth paralyzed, and her large schemes of opening up and peopling 
her undeveloped country in the Northwest fail of realization during 
the next two decades of years. A wave of discontent and lost 
hope would then probably pass over the country and bring to the 
surface an annexation party; but it is idle to speculate on what 
appears, as things are now, the most unlikely thing to happen. 
Whatever may be said by pessimistic writers like Mr. Goldwin 
Smith, or by discontented politicians in certain sections of the 
Dominion, success has so far, on the whole, crowned the efforts of 
Canadian statesmen to consolidate the federation, and there is no 
reason that their hope of seeing new and prosperous provinces 
stretching as far as the Pacific ocean, will not be realized during the 
next twenty or thirty years, as long as the mass of the people con- 
tinue to be animated by that spirit of enterprise and national 
ambition which has hitherto characterized their efforts. For the 
foregoing reasons we may fairly conclude that the question of 
annexation to the Unit,ed States is not in any shape before the 
people of Canada at the present time, and is not likely to be before 
them whilst the country continues to make the same progress it has 
made for years past. 

In considering the nature of the connection between Canada 
and England, the following conclusions are reached : 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING." I49 

First — That the Canadians will accept no scheme which may 
in any way whatever weaken the admirable system of federal 
government and cf provincial freedom which Canada now possesses 
under her present Constitution. 

Second — That the Canadians hesitate to entrust the arrange- 
ment of their financial or fiscal policy to any parliamentary body 
in which their representation will be necessarily sm^ll and their 
influence consequently insignificant. 

Third — That a million and more of French-Canadian people 
are decidedly antagonistic to any scheme of federation which may 
curtail their privileges and bring them under the control of a federal 
parliament in which their peculiar interests might be sacrificed and 
their identity as a distinct race eventually lost. 

Fourth — These objections are believed by not a few persons to 
lie for the present in the way of the adoption of the large scheme 
of federation, under which one general parliament would be 
created for the whole empire — the most logical scheme on its face, 
since it would give each province or section of the empire control 
over its purely local or provincial affairs, including England, Scot- 
land, and Ireland — and constitute one large legislative body to 
legislate on all matters which would naturally appertain to the 
whole empire. It must be admitted that, grand as appears this idea 
of federation, the difficulties that impede its realization seem for the 
moment very difficult to surmount. * * * 

It must not be supposed from anything I have said that there 
is a feeling of antagonism to the scheme throughout the Dominion. 
The fact is, no steps have yet been taken in the direction of a 
practical consideration of the subject. A few thoughtful men are 
attempting to create a public sentiment on the question, but the 
public men and press generally are silent in the absence of any 
practical scheme which they can consider, whilst the mass of the 
people are too busy to pay any attention to what is so far a ])urely 
theoretical conception. There are so many decided advantages in 
the present political position of the country that some great national 
crisis alone can show the people how frail, after all, in some respects, 
are the ties that now bind the colonies to the empire. 

If the difficulties that arise from distance, tariffs, and representa- 
tion, cannot be arranged on terms which will preserve the interests 
of all sections of the empire, then at least it will be open to 
Canada and the other great countries which are now dependencies 
of the empire, should they be dissatisfied with the existing state of 
things, to assume a higher position among communities, and at the 
same time enter into a solemn league and compact with their old 
parent for their common defense and security. Then England, 



150 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

whose manifest destiny it is to perpetuate her language and institu- 
tions in every quarter of the globe, would still be able to retain 
that prestige which the possession of a great colonial empire has 
long given her, while Canada and other countries which are of 
British origin would be in a position to satisfy their national aspira- 
tions, and at the same time preserve the connection on terms which 
would be at once a recognition of their importance, and of their 
respect and affection for the parent state. And who will dare to 
say that it is not even among the possibilities of the future that all 
the British-speaking people will sign this solemn league ? A feder- 
ation of the world is but a poetic fancy ; but it would be well for 
the peace of nations were the United States, in whose progress and 
'prosperity Canadians should take a natural pride — although they 
may never be associated with the political union of their neighbors 
— also to form part of such a league as we imagine, and in that 
way give guarantees for the common peace and security of com- 
munities which should always be allied to each other by the ties of 
a common ancestry and a common interest. * * ^^ 

I cannot conceal from myself that, though there is no immedi- 
ate necessity or prospect of change, the political and material devel- 
opment of Canada every year is preparing us for a large state of 
national existence in the future. When there is a continuous chain 
of great provinces from the Atlantic to the Pacific shores ; when 
the territories of the Northwest contain several States as rich and 
prosperous as Minnesota, or Illinois, or Indiana; when there are 
fifteen or twenty millions of energetic, industrious people within 
Canada, will the present position of things satisfy the ambition of 
a youthful giant like the Dominion ? Will they not demand a 
higher status in the empire or such a position among communities 
as is commensurate with their increased wealth and population ? 
What now is the meaning of the demand that is made by the 
Imperial Federalists for improved relations with England ? Is the 
proposal of a large and influential party in Canada for the right to 
make her own treaties without significance ? Do we not find the 
present government — a conservative and imperial government, too, 
in its general line of policy — claiming the right of Canada to deal 
exclusively with all questions that fall within the limits of the legis- 
lative jurisdiction given them by the fundamental law or Constitu- 
tion of 1867, and to repeal even a statute passed by the imperial 
Parliament previous to the granting of that Constitution with refer- 
ence to subjects of Canadian concern ? All these are surely so 
many evidences that the logic of events is much more forcible than 
the logic of statesmen, and that Canada is slowly, but steadily, 
nevertheless, being carried in the direction of some great change in 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 151 

her political condition. My own desire is, and my belief is, as 
I have already indicated, to see Canada, if possible, assuming a 
higher position within the empire, or at all events maintain with it 
such an alliance as will be mutually advantageous. Of one thing I 
am certain, and that is no patriotic or true Canadian feels in his 
heart the least desire in favor of annexation. That would mean to 
give up every honest and legitimate ambition to see Canada reap 
the reward of the struggles of the past and her efforts of the 
present, and hold her own as Canada on this continent. Let me 
ask you, in all frankness, what you have to offer us in exchange 
for giving up everything that gives an incentive to a people's 
exertions, and for acknowledging failure in our schemes of national 
development ? We have a country with a climate as bracing and 
healthy as your own in the North and West. I think it is the 
great French thinker, Montesquieu, from whom the founders of 
your constitutional system learned many lessons of wisdom, who says 
that a climate like that we have in Canada will produce strength, 
self-reliance, and confidence in one's own security and capacity 
to hold one's own among communities. We have a vast area 
of country still undeveloped, more valuable for the cultivation of 
cereals than any you have yet untilled. We have the finest fisheries 
in the world, as we have already learned from the efforts of your 
politicians to get the easiest and cheapest access to them that is 
possible. We have inexhaustible coal mines and large deposits of 
minerals of various kinds, which must sooner or later add greatly 
to our national wealth. We have a system of government which, 
in all essential respects, is calculated to give free expansion to the 
energies and capacities of the people, and is in certain particulars 
superior to your own. The very fact that the Cabinet of Canada 
has a seat in Parliament, is responsible to that body for all its acts, 
explains and justifies the work of administration, is responsible for 
all legislation, and only holds office as long as it has the confidence 
and support of the people's house, may be cited as some evidence 
of the superiority of our government over your irresponsible system, 
which gives no place to your Cabinet in the Congress, and renders 
your whole legislative machinery much less effective. Our judiciary 
holds its term for life, is subject only to removal on the address of 
Parliament after impeachment and trial, and is not exposed to the 
caprice or fluctuations of the popular will. We have seen in the 
new Territories of Canada a greater respect for the authority of the 
law than you have in many of your regularly organized States, 
and it is needless to say that we have never seen in our old com- 
munities the thugism and murderous conspiracies which disgrace 
the history of Chicago and some other of your great centers of 



152 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

population, and ever and anon make the whole civilized world stand 
aghast and wonder if the future of your country is secure when 
anarchists and conspirators are allowed to prosecute their unlawful 
plans. Our moral and social atmosphere is certainly in all respects 
as healthful as your own, if I dare say so, and we value as above 
all price the sanctity of the ties that bind together the family — the 
only true basis on which a community can rest its happiness. We 
adhere more closely than you do, perhaps, to all those sound max- 
ims of government and jurisprudence which have come down to 
us from our common English fathers. In self-defense, as a Cana- 
dian, I am compelled to make these comparisons, not in an ungen- 
erous or unkindly spirit, but with the sole desire to show that we have 
much reason for thankfulness as Canadians that we live in a coun- 
try like ours. Still, we must admit that your country can well 
evoke the admiration of the world for its remarkable strides in ma- 
terial wealth, in political greatness, and in the intelligence and cul- 
ture of its people. No Canadian can visit your cities, towns, and 
villages without being astonished, not merely by the evidences of 
wealth, but by the signs of taste and refinement displayed in your 
beautiful homes, your embowered avenues and streets, your lovely 
parks, and the many opportunities given to the masses to enjoy 
a holiday among the mountains, by the sides of your many lakes, 
or on the great oceans that roll on your Atlantic and Pacific coasts. 
Above all, we admire your noble educational institutions, which 
illustrate so well the generosity and sagacity not only of your State 
governments, but of large-minded men like Johns Hopkins, Pea- 
body, and Cornell. All these and other matters are objects not of 
our envy, but of pleasing contemplation. We point to them as 
worthy of the emulation of our people, just as we point to blemishes 
in your political or social organization for our self-instruction. Each 
country, I think, can learn something from the other, and both can 
certainly cultivate all those relations which are natural between 
communities who are bound to each other by every consideration 
of self-interest, common origin, neighborly intercourse and friendly 
rivalry. The continent is broad enough for two great nations ani- 
mated by an equal desire to perpetuate the English language and 
the blessings of sound government whose principles are derived 
from those men who wrung the great charter from John at Runney- 
mede, and were illustrated by the lives of Pym, Hampden, and 
Russell. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 153 

FRIDAY, JULY 12. 

Morning Session, 

"Park Hall," Spring Fountain Park, 
Warsaw, Indiana. 

By invitation of Beyer Brothers, proprietors of Spring Fountain 
Park, the Association held the closing Session of the Fourth Annual 
Convention at Spring Fountain Park, in "Park" Hall, opening at 
10 A. M., with President Parker in the Chair, and a full attendance. 

President Parker prefaced the opening exercises by suggesting 
the continuance of an informal discussion upon American novelists 
and novels, making special mention of Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
as a poet and novelist ; Washington Irving, as a writer of romance ; 
and Longfellow, in "Hyperion" and "Outre Mer," in which 
James Whitcomb Riley, Hon. J. G. Bourinot, and Dr. H. W. Taylor 
participated. 

Dr. H. W. Taylor moved that a rising vote, expressive of the 
appreciation of the Association be extended President Parker for 
his untiring and successful efforts in arranging for the Convention, 
and his able, pleasant, and equitable rulings, which had rendered 
each session a pleasure. 

James Whitcomb Riley seconded the motion. 

The motion was unanimously carried. 

President Parker asked the indulgence of the Convention, 
responding feelingly to its action, urging that the helpfulness of 
others had made it possible to hold the meeting then closing, 
under such delightful conditions and perfections of detail. 

REPORT OF COMMITTEES. 

George B. Cardwill, Chairman of Committee on Nominations 
of Officers : 



154 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Mr. President: 

As Chairman of the Committee on Nominations, I have the honor to 
submit the following to the consideration of this Convention. 

George B. Cardwill, 

Chairman of Committee. 

President — Judge Cyrus F. McNutt, Terre Haute, Indiana. 
First Vice-Presidefit—yikVAK Sears Brooks, Madison, Indiana. 
Secretaries — Mary E. Cardwill, New Albany, Indiana; L. 
May Wheeler, Springfield, Ohio. 

Treasurer — W. W. Pfrimmer, Kendand, Indiana. 

executive committee. 

Benj. S. Parker, New Castle, Indiana. 
Wm. Dudley Foulke, Richmond Indiana. 
Geo. B. Cardwill, New Albany, Indiana. 
Marie Louise Andrews, Connersville, Indiana. 
Mary Hartwell Catherwood, Hoopeston, Illinois. 
Ella M. Nave, Indianapolis, Indiana. 
Dr. H. W. Taylor, Sullivan, Indiana. 
Mrs. E. S. L. Thompson, Muncie, Indiana. 

The Report was received and adopted, and the officers were 
elected by acclamation. 



Mrs. M. L. Andrews, Chairman of Committee on Biographies, 
requested that the Committee be continued, and granted discre- 
tionary power. 

George B. Cardwill moved that the Committee on Biography 
be made a standing one for the year. 

Mr. J. P. Dunn seconded the motion. 

Dr. Rachel Swain, Mr. J. P. Dunn, Mrs. M. L. Andrews, and 
James Whitcomb Riley participated in a discussion of the motion. 

Motion was carried. 



Mrs. Hannah E. Davis presented an interesting paper, for dis- 
cussion, upon 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 1 55 

"WESTERN LIFE AND SCENERY, WITH REFERENCE TO 
LITERATURE." 

The effort to identify in literature what is truly western, either 
in original inspiration, or authorship, makes apparent the oneness 
of our national life. 

Of many of our writers, western in nativity, the training for 
work, — the mcentives to work — tlie themes upon which their 
labor has been expended, are of the East, or are niternaiional. 

Sometimes, however, the West recognizes with a feeling of 
parental pride, her own influence on these, her children, as in the 
scope and freedom of their thought a spiru born of the prairie ; in 
their recognition of sterling and beautilul character, under repellant 
exteriors, a perception developed by an acquaintance with the 
rough, rugged mountains and their hearts of gold. 

But on the part of the West, it has not been an unrequited 
giving ; the sections to each other, in this, have been reciprocal. 

If the West has given to the East, she has received back again, 
gift for gift, interpreter for interpreter; and no more clearly and 
appreciatively has the sunset pilgrim spoken for his adopted East, 
than has the eastern alien responded to the inspiration of the West. 

With an affection, an appreciation, and an ardor born of his 
recognition and acknowledgment that the West is truly a part of his 
fatherland, has the transplanted child of the East, voiced for the 
West, its thoughts, its needs, its aspirations; and in sorrow and in 
love, judged it for its sins, and pronounced against its blood guilti- 
ness. Thus it follows that in the consideration of the assigned 
theme, there can be no natal limitations, and this, as it should be, 
is in accord with our national spirit. 

However, the West has clear sub-sectional peculiarities in its 
modes of life, its manners, customs, and dialects. 

Its literature, if influenced by these, will also be divisible into 
the same sub-sections. Of these will be noted especially, the liter- 
ature of the Mississi|)pi Valley and that of the Western Slope, as 
they have notably distinct peculiarities. 

But the line of thought to be followed will be made clearer if, 
before it is entered upon, it be recognized that there are some limi- 
tations which of necessity must determine it ; as those of time, 
place, theme, and purpose. There are a number of Western authors 
who, in science, in history, etc., deservedly hold, and will hold, 
honorable place in their ranks with those of any other section, yet 
these, under the referred to restrictions, can not now even be men- 
tioned. Further, — from the many in the purely literary field, — 
numbers alone, render selections the only course admissible; many 



156 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

names are omitted regretfully, — but this paper is not designed to 
be a biographical memoir. 

Time and purpose also preclude the exposition of any author's 
works. Illustrative references and examples will be trusted to, to 
make clear or to emphasize the thought, presented, as it shall be, 
not in generalities, but as specifically as possible. 

With these points before us it becomes evident that it will bet- 
ter serve the present purpose, be clearer and more pleasing if the 
illustrations are taken from the authors who are most especially our 
household friends. 

Of these, there is a poem which is so thoroughly the out-growth 
of Hoosier life and conditions, that we of Western birth feel in it 
an interest and ownership, as if it were an etching of our ancestral 
home and its occupants, — "'The Cabin in the Clearing," by our 
honorable Chairman, Mr. B. S. Parker. The rude comfort and 
plenty of this cabin, its latch-string hospitality, its neighborly friend- 
liness, its homely, every-day toil and hardship, illuminated and 
glorified by the abiding love light, the tender pathos of the death 
shadow whence two departed where but one angel had entered in. 
Are they not all the simple record of our fathers' or our grand- 
fathers' cabins in the clearing, and to us is not ever 

The memory a blessing, 
And the picture fair to see ? 

The tragic counterpart of this " Cabin in the Clearing" is that 
of Mr. Carleton's, "The First Settler's Story." 

With swift movement and skillful touch, the isolation and the 
difficulties of the pioneer are sketched. With painful fidelity to facts, 
are given the toil, and worry, and hardships under which, in the 
heart of one at least, love had died. The sad sequel follows swiftly. 
The most painful feature is that, while the details vary, in our hearts 
we know that of the two cabins in the clearing, Carleton's is most 
typical. 

Really the poems of Mr. Carleton have the panoramic quality 
of presenting a progressive succession of scenes in pioneer life, as 
the "Song of the Axe," "The Camp-Meeting," "An Evening in 
a Country Store," "Betsy and I are out," "Over the Hill to the 
Poor-house." 

Now, even in country stores, commodities are somewhat rele- 
gated to their proper belongings. But an old-t'ime country store ! 
Who of us, with eyes not so keen as they used to be, even when 
we do look through glasses, will need spectacles to see it again ? 
That vision of childish delight and curiosity ! A store as Mr, 
Carleton has described it, which contained in itself the various 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 157 

offices of grocery, hardware establishment, drug store, dry goods 
emporium, variety shop, and post office. 

Other pictures of pioneer life are found in the "Grammar of 
Life," by B. F. Taylor, or in "The Old-fashioned Fire," and some 
others by the same author, and in "Western Windows," and 
"Idyls and Lyrics of the Ohio Valley," by J. J. Piatt, the same 
who published jointly with another gentleman a volume of poems, 
entitled "Poems by two Friends." 

This friend, W. D. Howells, by the way, is a Western man, 
who has introduced into his novels some Western characters, but 
who has taken so kindly to his transplanting, that he might fairly 
be taken to be indigenous to the East. 

Mr. Riley, a native of Indiana, has drawn his inspiration 
largely from characters and customs of the West, and especially is 
he dialectic. Could he only teach the future to interpret his spirit 
and humor as he interprets himself, the Hoosier spirit would be 
assured of its immortality. 

But the Rembrandt of the West, the one who brings out w^ith 
skillful and true touch each peculiarity of rough, uncouth character, 
be it good or ill, is Edward Eggleston. Wuh Flemish fidelity he 
traces the repulsive homes, their harsh exteriors and unattractive 
interiors; every little circumstance ot the arid home life within, 
while at the same time he invests all in an atmosphere where light 
and shade blend and soften. The effect is much the same as that 
of time on our memory pictures, and while we remain conscious 
of the severe truth, yet we are at the same time attracted and held. 
Such sketches as these are the schoolmaster's experience in boardin' 
round, the midnight raid of the thieves, the primitive roads, with 
their attendant and sometimes agreeable necessity of pillow riding; 
and here an effective little touch is given in the manner in which 
one is let into the secret that the human heart is the same, whether 
it beats under the Parisian vestments of the scions of Murray Hill 
or Fifth Avenue, or under a jeans vest or linsey bodice. That the 
ride is equally fascinating, whether the route be a fashionable boule- 
vard, or a blazed bridle path, whether the equipage be a dashing 
turnout, a fur-trimmed cutter or a horse that would comfortably 
carry double, and the destination a spelling school, a corn husking, 
or an apple bee. 

In the gallery of portraits is the same fidelity to nature. Evi- 
dently each sat to the painter; such an one is rough, honest Budd 
Means, with the bull-dog tenacity of purpose which he so much 
admired in the brute and unconsciously possessed himself; and his 
" girl as is a girl," Mrs. Means, concerning whom silence is most 
expressive; the brutal bullies and thieves, Pete Jones and his 



158 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

brother; the contemptible sneak, Hank Banta; the equally con- 
temptible political trimmer, Bronson, of a race and type for whose 
acquaintance we do not have to interview memory. Dr. Small, 
whose picture is so vivid that one finds himself asking. Who is he? 
A character for unity, clearness, vividness, and inimitableness of 
delineation, worthy to be placed beside the ignominiously immortal 
Uriah Heap, and the facetiously immortal Sam Weller. Really in 
Budd Means and his bull-dog Mr. Eggleston has typified the most 
marked trait in Western character. 

Whether Budd Means, in his rude vernacular, says, "When 
Bull takes holt heaven and yearth can't make him let loose," or our 
Western General Grant says in his bloody campaign in the wilder- 
ness, "I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," the 
Western spirit is voiced just as truly. 

Equally well does Mr. Eggleston represent the religious types 
of that early day, whether it be hardshell Baptist or Methodist 
circuit-rider, and he does it with a kindly sympathy and apprecia- 
tion, that does justice to the good effected by such preachers, while 
showing up honestly their folhes, mistakes, and foibles. 

The courage and fertility of expedient of Goodwin, and the 
devotion unto death of Kike Lumsden are a just tribute to those 
early Methodist pioneers, whose work was the breaking down and 
the uprooting ot the lawless passions of lawless men in this then 
border-land of civihzation. A work of as much difficulty as sub- 
duing the untrained forces of the wilderness, and one as effectually 
done, and by means as heroic. 

Altogether different are the characters, the modes of life, and 
the landscapes, that give tone and color to the literature of the 
great West. 

One of the first and foremost writers to be affected by their 
influence, and to so voice their moods as to find honorable place 
in our literature, is Bret Harte. Singularly enough, and reasonably 
enough, he illustrates what was remarked at first, that the East had 
given to the West those, who though foster children, fully under- 
stand and intelligently, intelligibly, and affectionately interpret the 
thought of the adopted parent. 

Bret Harte, a native of New York, went to California in 1855, 
before its statehood, and in time to acquaint himself with the pecu- 
liarities of that curiously mixed society, which contained elements 
of both civilized and savage life. 

There yet remained relics of the old Spanish Mission, with its 
Christianized Indians. There were also the savage tribes of the 
plains, the Chinese, the gold hunters, and adventurers of all kinds; 
especially after the discovery of gold, the scum of the Eastern 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 1 59 

cities, the off-scouring of the borders of civilization, a sparse inter- 
mingHng of surveyors, geologists, teachers, ministers, and a fearful 
scarcity of women, except of those whose presence was a curse. 

The dram shop, the gambling den, the dance hall, were next in 
frequency to the tents, the board shanties, the adobe huts of the 
squatters. 

The picturesque, the dramatic, the pathetic in this rude, lawless 
life, found an apt delineator in the young New Yorker. 

In the " Overland Monthly," a magazine whose existence be- 
gan in r868, and terminated in 1875, ^^r. Harte first appears in a 
story, the " Luck of Roaring Camp." Following this were the 
"Outcasts of Poker Flat," "Tennessee's Partner," and the poem 
most widely-known as the " Heathen Chinee." The shrewdness 
and humor of this poem gave a wide popularity to it and its author, 
and also to Mr. Harte's subsequent expositions of the peculiar 
phrases of that peculiar section. From Mr. Harte's apostrophe to 
the quickly risen city "San Francisco," I quote 

" S«"rene, indifferent to fate 
Thou sittf-st at the Western Gate. 
Upon thy heights so lately won 
Still slant the banners of the sun. 
Thou drawest all things small and great 
To thee beside the Western Gate. 
I know thy cunning and thy greed, 
Thy hard, high lust, and willful deed." 

Another poem that reflects a then passing phase of Western 
life, is "The Angelus." The ringing of the chimes, heard in 1868, 
at the Mission Dolores : 

Bells of the past, whose long forgotten music 

Still fills the wide expanse. 
Tinging the sober twilight of the present 

With color of romance. 
I hear your call, and see the sun descending 

On rock and wave and sand, 
As down the coast, the mission voices blending. 

Girdle the heathen land. 
Before me rise the dome-shaped mission towers. 

The white presidio, 
The swart commander, in his leathern jerkin, 

The priest in stole of snow. 

Mr. Harte goes below the surface and brings uj) nuggets of 
gold from most unpromising surface indications, but while his pic- 
tures of natural scenery, and of the life on mountain, plain, in 
camp, and den, and dive, are accepted unquestioningly as faithful 
delineations of that time, by the same readers, there is entertained 



l6o WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

a doubt of the truth in his ascriptions to the hard, rough denizens 
of these places, of a lofty heroism, self-sacrifice, and nobility of soul. 

Such critics claim the nuggets to be only brass imitations, but 
are not their ascriptions rather the proof of the prophet, who, to 
represent truly his people, must reach below the seeming — the 
actual ? 

Mr. Harte, I hold, offers in these delineations no palliation for 
sin, but he, in his human measure, sees men as God sees them. 

When he could utter so truly the very intents of the heart of 
the Western slope, what a pity that his voice should become silent. 
Good fortune has been unkind in holding the eyes that saw so 
clearly, and closing the golden mouth with gold. 

Not only has Mr. Harte most happily given us the pictures 
referred to, but in his dialectic poems, he has voiced the varied 
nationalities of the Pacific coast. 

Joaquin Miller has also given us glimpses of vast, tawny, mir- 
aged plains, and snow-topped shadowy mountains, of vaquero, pie- 
bald mustang, and jangling spurs, gay serape and silver-zoned som- 
brero, of Indian legend, romance and wrong. Of wrongs, deep, 
bitter, almost childishly told in their simplicity, but with a burning 
pathos, for there are many "John Logans." 

A curious kind of reflection of a reflection is John Hay's 
"Little Breeches," and his "Jim Bludsoe." Mr. Hay has caught 
the spirit of Mr. Harte, and in these has voiced it without loss of 
power. 

The West has reflected itself through many able essayists, and 
magazine serial, or newspaper letter writers. Mrs. J. Wallace, Mrs. 
S. Wallace, Mary Hallock Foote, Mr. Remington, are only a few of 
the many. 

At a very early date the Pacific slope had its humorist in the 
person of Lieut. Geo. A. Derby, John Phoenix, who wrote during 
the '50's. 

Some of the Western tragedies growing out of the struggle with 
slavery have touched the heart of our Eastern Quaker poet, and of 
them he has spoken in his "Kansas Emigrant," "The Burial of 
Barbour," " Le Marais du Cygne," and others. 

The horrors of our slave system- touched other hearts than his, 
and that of Mrs. Stowe, vibrated to the stroke until the chords were 
heard from sea to lake,_from sea to sea, and beyond. 

Mrs. Stowe was a Western woman, and the crime against which 
she spoke was national. 

The horrors of our Indian system has touched some hearts, 
among them that of H. H., a New England woman by birth and of 
the far West by residence. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. l6l 

" Made strong by familiar pain " for those who could not speak 
or if they spoke would not be heard, H. H. has spoken. I'he black 
features of our Indian system are faithfully depicted in "A Century 
of Dishonor," and in " Ramona." In the latter, following her story, 
we are led through the peculiar vegetation of Southern California ; we 
are given glimpses of the strange patriarchal life of this part of the 
New World. We are introduced into the home-life of the Christian- 
ized Indians, we see the strong and beneficial influences of one who 
was a priest, in spirit, as well as in garb. But through it all there is 
not a hair's breadth of swerving from the purpose, to reflect truly, 
in all its hideousness, this national crime of willful, self-blinding, by 
our Saxon greed, and of willful trampling out of the weak in our 
Viking spirit. It is these qualities in our nature that have hung in 
the skeleton closet of our literature " Uncle Tom, " " John Logan," 
"Allesandro." 

Turning from this to our grain fields of the prairies, whose pro- 
ducts feed the world, would it be a strained presumption to infer 
that they may have suggested to Mrs. S. K. Bolton the importance 
of sowing good seed in the hearts of Young America, and that the 
suggestion ripened into the inspiration which has given to our young 
people such helpful, well-written books concerning " Poor boys who 
have become Famous," and girls who have become famous women ? 

To only one other influence on our literature, traceable to the 
West, will reference be made. It is that of our Western spirit of daring 
all things, overcoming all things. 

It is this spirit that tunneled our mountains, filled or bridged 
the chasms, and cut a path in mid-air on the mountain side. 

Is it too boastful to claim that it is the influence of this same 
Western spirit on our literature that is revealed by that author who 
has given us minutely truthful descriptions of a land in which his 
foot had never trodden and on which his eye had never rested; of 
a social system for centuries obsolete, and of a government, for 
ages passed away ; a picture concerning which, adepts in history 
have no unfavorable criticism to offer, and yet which the general 
reader finds so vivid and richly colored, that he can scarcely tear 
himself from its study ? To weave all this into a story whose unity 
and cohesion are perfect, to make the central figure of all this life, 
the one perfect life, who takes a part in it all as really and as vividly 
and as humanly as any figure in it, and yet never for an instant 
sinks the divine into the weak, the common-place, the familiar; 
to do all this in such a masterly manner surely requires the spirit 
that recognizes nothing as impossible, — that makes a way where 
there is none. Now whether or not it be a foundationless vaunt to 
claim this to be the result of Western impulse, it is a truth that a 



1 62 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Western man accomplished such a work when Gen. Lew. Wallace 
wrote " Ben Hur. " 

Dr. H. W. Taylor, Mrs. J. V. H. Koons, Dr. Rachel Swain, 
James Whitcomb Riley, L. May Wheeler, and Hon. John H. Lee, 
participated in the discussion. 



Mrs. Ella M. Nave, author of the popular " McDuffy Papers," 
and a successful writer of the humoristic in prose and verse, con- 
tributed 

"MRS. McDUFFY AT BASE BALL." 

There is one woman in Indianapolis who will probaby never 
become an enthusiastic admirer of base ball. 

The individual to whom I refer is Mrs. McDuffy. I had the 
misfortune to occupy a seat adjoining her's during the opening 
game between the Detroits and home club, and the following were 
the remarks on the occasion referred to : 

" I do n't see why some women can't understand base ball. If 
there is anything about it that I can 't see through it will be strange," 
said she to her husband. " What is the principal attraction to-day ?" 

"Why, the 'Big Four,' of course," said he. 

"Oh, yes, how stupid I am, and that is Jay Gould watching 
the 'Big Four' so closely. Didn't he say 'one strike'? He is 
responsible for all those dreadful strikes, is n't he ? the mean thing ! 
Do you think the men will strike to-day ? " 

"Great Heavens, woman, are you crazy? The 'Big Four' 
are Brothers, Rowe, White, and Thompson, and that man is the 
umpire. Can 't you keep quiet and watch the game?" 

"Ain't I watching the game? " she responded. " But where is 
the Detroit team ? I have n't seen a team to-day any different from 
Indianapolis horses. Do they bring them right out on the grounds ? 
I should think they would get frightened in such a crowd as this, 
and kick and cut up awfully. Do you think they will ? " 

"It is possible," he answered, resignedly. "There are some 
kicking teams. " 

" I am so glad we are up here out of danger. What did that 
man do then ? " 

" Struck a foul — " 

" Struck a poor innocent fowl ? The hateful thing ! I did n't 
see any fowl. What kind of a fowl was it ? What are they cheer- 
ing for ? " 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 1 63 

" Thompson caught a fly. " 

" Now, Mr. McDuffy, do n't sit there and tell me that you can 
see anything so small as a fly at this distance. Besides, its too early 
for flies. What do they want to stop in a game of base ball to 
catch flies for, any way ? Do tell me what that man is acting so 
silly about." 

" Trying to steal a base. " 

" The wicked thief ! Where is the base ?" 

" Over there," explained McDuffy, with a sigh. " That is the 
first base, the other one the second, and this one nearest the third." 

"Are they, indeed? and that is the soprano in the middle, I 
suppose. " 

"Ah, yes," groaned McDuffy. " You 're getting it down fine. " 

" See, that naughty man has knocked the ball clear out of 
sight — was n't that mean ? Don't you suppose they '11 discharge 
him ? What are they cheering for now ? — making a home run, did 
you say? Well I should think he would, and stay there too, after 
such an exhibition of temper. — What, did you say they were going 
to white-wash them? Do they white-wash them all over — face 
and all ? " 

"Ah," said McDuffy, savagely, "You've got it now. That's 
the way they fix them, and afterwards calcimine them, and fresco 
them, and dado them, and put on French roofs. How proud I am 
of you, Mrs. McDuffy ; all you need is a white-wash brush to be a 
full fledged member of the Lime Kiln Club. " 

" How funny you are, Mr. McDuffy ; you are bored because 
I can see through your great national game so easily, that 's what 's 
the matter with you. — What, did that man say they were giving 
the visitors goose eggs? Now, what do they want with goose eggs 
in a game of ball ? It 's getting worse and worse. I do n't see 
what people go crazy over base ball for, any way — I understand 
the game, as far as that is concerned, but there is nothing in it. 
If there is anything smart in bringing out thousands of people to 
watch them catch flies, and strike fowls, and crack pitchers, and 
muffs, and daisy catchers, and two baggers, and goose eggs, and — 
the Lord only knows what else, — I can 't see it. The next thing 
they '11 be bringing in that Detroit team, and they '11 kill somebody ; 
that is just about the way the thing will end, and I don't propose to 
stay to see it. If you '11 just see me to the carriage, Mr. McDuff"y, 
I '11 go home. I 've had all the base ball I want." 



Mr. Herman Rave, of the Jeffersonville (Ind.) "News," 
contributed 



164 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

"THE LAST MESSAGE," 

which was read by Mary E. Cardwill. It is a tribute to the mem- 
ory of Mrs. H. M. Ogle, the telegraph operator, who perished at 
her post in the Johnstown disaster. 

Ring out, my song, like bugle peal ! 

Brave hearts shall thrill the tale to hear, 
How woman's spirit, true as steel, 

Stood 'mid the mad'ning rush of fear ! 

Ring out, my song, like bugle blast, 

The daring and the deed done well ! 
As long as hero-hearts shall last 

'Tis glory such a tale to tell ! 

When broke the dam at Conemaugh, 
When thundered down the awful flood. 

She knew 'twas death her vision saw, 
Yet bravely at her post she stood. 

Oh, noble woman, brave and true, 

Who held the telegraphic key. 
Thy words shall ring the ages through : 

"This message is the last from me ! " 

'Mid roar and crash and wreck of all 

Engulfed, her soul was torn away ; 
Her's was the swift and sudden call ; 

She answered — at the Gates of Day ! 

Breathe soft, breathe low the funeral song ; 

Mourn for the dead that strew the vale ; 
Mourn, Nation, for the slaughtered throng, 

But triumph in the hero's tale ! 



Mrs. L. May Wheeler presented a sketch of the late Myla 
Charles, daughter of Emily Thornton Charles, of Washington, D. 
C, both of whom were among the early members of the Associa- 
tion. 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 165 

Irene Boynton Hawley, of Columbus, Indiana, contributed 
tlie following, which was read by L. May Wheeler : 

"FLOTSAM." 

See the debris upon a river's breast, 

Dimpling the eddies on its limpid floor, 
Some freak of current severs from the rest 

A luckless beam, and strands it on the shore, 
A garniture of mould and moss to don. 
While the bright wave its gay freight circles on. 

But Nature, ever just, requital saves 

From the rich garners of her fertile store, 

The anchored drift, abandoned of the waves, 
Becomes a poem on a lonely shore, 

Fashioned by elfin elements grotesque. 

Into an object lovely, picturesque. 

Oh ! might I dare comparison to make 

Between this river flotsam and my life, 
Thwarted ambition still might comfort take 

In its restricted plane, perhaps as rife 
With chances similar, the soul to dress. 
With moss of love, and stems of usefulness. 

If I could hope an alchemy divine. 

Could transmute dew of grief and heat of pain 

To that sweet verdure, and that foliage fine, 
That hides decay, and covers age and stain. 

If seeds of spiritual grace abide 

In rifts of fate, I would be satisfied. 

Patience, my soul ! and vain desires, be still ! 

Draw wisely from surrounding atmospheres 
The germs of grace and beauty, and distil 

A chrism of blessing from thy vase of tears. 
Take from the hand of Life the full cup sent. 
And make its wave a sacred sacrament. 

Convention adjourned. 



l66 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

THE ANNUAL PUBLIC ENTERTAINMENT 

was held at the First Presbyterian Church, in Warsaw, Friday 
evening, July 12, commencing at 8 o'clock. 

Mrs. M. E. Moran, Mrs. and Mr. Frank Detrick, Mrs. John 
A. Widaman, Mrs. Merlin Funk, and Mr. Charles P. Downs 
afforded a delightful variety by the artistic execution of vocal and 
instrumental music. 

James Whitcomb Riley, Clarence A. Hough, W.W. Pfrimmer, 
and William Alfred Hough appeared in recitation. 

Mrs. M. vSears Brooks presented a narrative poem suggested 
by an incident of the late war. 

Mrs. J. V. H. Koons gave a verse in lullaby, entitled "Wait 
a wee and dinna Weary." 

Mary Hartwell Catherwood read "A Chapter " from her new 
romance, "The Story of Tonty. " 

Eleanor Stackhouse, " Nora Marks, " read two chapters from 
her book on "Salvation Army " life. 

L. May Wheeler presented a deductive and metaphoric paper 
upon 

"STREET CROSSINGS, OR KEEPING TO THE RIGHT." 

Facts are things. A street crossing is a fact, that is, if it is 
established. Some crossings are not, but are purely matters of acci- 
dent or incident. 

People are facts also. Sometimes they are stubborn. Street 
crossings and people are frequently at cross purposes, and when so, 
the people, at that moment, are unaware that facts imply principles. 

A walking fact met one of its kind. It spoke. It said "Good 
morning! " Its opposite replied "Good morning! " The meeting 
occurred upon a place running in accordance with something. That 
something was a line of stone intersticed with a mixture of oxidized 
mushiness which farmed a compound of mud. At this instant a 
change occurred. One that might paralogize the mathematician 
and paralyze the logician. The facts, or entities, became parallelo- 
grams. Instead of the daintily tripping bodies, the one at the right 
became a quadrilateral figure and poised itself into a higher height, 
and a narrower width, and with a goodly number of right-angles; 
while the former reduced itself into the anomalous state of being a 
left-angled parallelogram. At this point the opposites were forces 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 1 67 

and not lines, and the directness and intensity of their purposes 
must have become diagonal, or result in collisive force suggestive of 
fire. So, to reduce this geometrical problem to the proper solution, 
it was proposed to obtain it by trial, and make it one of purely 
mechanical skill. It seemed impossible to do this by any social or 
established rule, as the exigencies of the circumstance must be met; 
a glance took in the situation, a curve and a poise made the matter 
solvable, and a leap and a bow preserved the temper for future dis- 
cipline, and the patent leathers from the muddy messes of a street 
crossing. 

Human facts walk. It is therefore human to walk, and to walk 
is human. The facts previously described were emj:)loying this 
means of movement, and it is the walking woman or man whom we 
have now in mind. 

A rightly proportioned body is usually indicative of a well- 
balanced mind, and this is shown in the entire personality of the 
individual. The body is upright ; its carriage is the graceful move- 
ment of its wonderfully articulated mechanism. To be right is to 
be logical. To be physically upright, then, is to be bodily logical. 
This implies a possession of mind with the power to think or reason 
correctly. This in turn results in culture and education, and every 
movement of the physical man, and the living woman, is a leaf in 
the book of life whereon is written the outlines of jjerfected charac- 
ter. To be right is primarily natural, and all the forces of physical 
life tend to this result. With the face to the polar star, the eyes and 
right hand turn toward the sun rising, which imparts warmth, 
light, and life to all creation. It is the right side that turns quickest 
to the call of mercy. It is the right hand that gives and takes the 
touch of sympathy. It imparts its warmth to the feeble body, and 
tenderly cools the dying pulse. It serves its master in the world of 
commerce. It turns the leaves of the book of knowledge, and 
brings to its possessor the right to life and its fairest possibilities. 

The feet speak also. The right foot starts upon the journey 
when its tottling mate bends and twists with the weight of the baby 
body. The years come, and the feet haste to do the bidding of 
active life. It is the right foot that makes the first impress on the 
hills of difficulty, and the right side of the lines walked in bear 
the heaviest imprints of the traveler. No one part so clearly marks 
the individuality of the person as the manner and meaning of the 
movements of the feet. They carry the body to the Fount of all 
Grace, and as the right knee supports the suppliant frame in its 
devotion, the thinking part turns instinctively to the power at the 
right hand of the Throne of God. 

Human life, however, was not the first existent life of this 
planet. Geologic science shows the actual remains or debris of a 



1 68 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

wonderful time when the earth was a vast plain, and tropical plants 
with mammoth ferns, palms and cactuses revelled in luxuriant pos- 
session. Then no mountains reared to the cloud, no hills drew 
the shine and made the shade, and no sun kissed winding valleys to 
rosy life, because there were no valleys. But in the processes of 
nature came the vast upheavals, the rounding of the breast of earth, 
the undulating surfaces, the verdant valleys, the green fields, the 
tiny shrub, and bits of mineral; and the present outward world 
abounds in forms, facts, and signs, which indicate that in the crossing 
from that epoch of pristine magnitude to the present, the old earth 
tossed its tumbling surfaces into ranges, rocks, rifts, and ravines, 
revelling in its primitive power of " keeping to the right ; " and this 
mandate is written upon every law of the universe. The planets in 
their flashing orbits, pursuing a zigzagged course, are held by the 
centripetal force of God's right hand. The winds that sweep to the 
sea, lashing the waves into foam-topped ridges, or the breezes lulled 
to the song of the tides, the rain, the shade, the shine, slant from the 
right. Look at the trend of a tree, the turn of a leaf, the bend of a 
plant. It is toward the sun rising, or the light. Even in the tiniest 
plant, or the minutest of the animal or insect world, the meeting 
and passing within close proximity tends to the right, with the ex- 
ception of mankind. 

It was after the wonderful evolution of the old earth to its 
present physical condition, that humanity came, and the conditions 
of concomitant life. Families, tribes, communities, and nations 
sprang into existence ; towns, cities, and republics grew apace. 
Human life took on the forms of civilization. Education became 
the key stone to the arch that reared its flushing form out of and 
over the orient, and together these two elements have sweetly 
winged their way from the first sunrise of intellectual life to now; 
and always from the East, and ever onward, the rightward course 
has been maintained. With civilization came amenities, and their 
lessons inculcate the fact that it is both natural and polite to " keep 
to the right." The man or the woman who has never learned this 
fact, will some day be brought to a consciousness of their illogical 
condition, one that is contrary to nature, to the law of physical 
poise," and one that should relegate such to regions never trod by 
man or beast ; because a cow, an ox, or a horse will naturally turn 
to the right, and if the man will but heed the movement, no col- 
lision is possible. 

Therefore the natural course of the revolutions of nature are 
toward the right. The physical condition of human nature is 
upright. The law of geometric nature is outright, and that which 
governs the country, town, city, street, alley, and crossing is the 
"right of way." 



FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING. 1 69 

The country, towns, and cities are inhabited by an aggregation 
of facts, termed people, and the people must be accommodated by 
the previous fact of streets, some of which are parallel, and some 
diagonal. For convenience these geometrical lines are crossed, 
but in these crossings, is made to appear the j^rinciple that would 
seem to be apparent to every intelligent mind, and that is, to "keep 
to the right." But alas! it is more nearly the exception to find one 
who instinctively turns to the rightward. This is a fact. Is it evi- 
dence that there exists a principle of perversity, exclusively human 
in its exhibition? If so, let the street crossings be abolished, and 
every walking man and woman go their own sweet way, until a 
new fact can be found to take its place, that will have for its funda- 
mental principle the force of " keeping to the right. " 



EXCERPTA. 



Between sessions, the "toilers of the pen" found material 
source and resource in the interests and attractions with which 
"Warsaw of Kosciusko" abounds. 



The name of "Spring Fountain Park" is synonymous with 
all that is picturesque in the combination of art and nature, and 
to the literary folk it recalls a day complete. 



Hon. John R. Lee, of Crawfordsville, Indiana, the father-in- 
law of Maurice Thompson, gave an entertaining talk Friday morn- 
ing upon the Indian question, and reminiscences of the earlier 
history of the literature of Indiana. 

The crowded steamers and plying row-boats were the strongest 
proofs of a lively appreciation of the Neptunic privileges extended 
by the Park and Summer Resort Associations. 



*Ella M. Nave, by her rising popularity as a humoristic writer, 
gives promise of a similar precedence among women writers, as 
that now occupied by Bill Nye among his brethren. 



■Mrs. Nave died" Jan. 9. 1890. 



I70 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

The book-makers were represented by Benj. S. Parker, Judge 
C. F. McNutt, Prof. J. C. Ridpath, James Whitcomb Riley, J. P. 
Dunn, Jr., W. P. Needham, Dr. H. W. Ta>lor, Mrs. M. Sears 
Brooks, N. J. Clodfelter, Mrs. D. M. Jordan, Franklin E. Denton, 
Mary Hartwell Catherwood, and Eleanor Stackhouse. 



As a presiding otificer, and as a clear and logical speaker, the 
Association has none the superior of Mr. George B. Cardwill. 



The pond lily was the Association's acknowledged emblem. 
Dawn-parties took the early risers, who brought in the lilies. 



Dr. H. W. Taylor and his violin were alike indispensable, and 
are happy remembrances. 

President Parker won hearts by his suaviter in modo. 

The press was represented by Gen. Reub. Williams, of the 
Daily (Warsaw) "Times;" Franklin E. Denton, Cleveland (Ohio) 
"Sun and Voice;" R. E. Mansfield, New Castle (Ind.) "Courier," 
and Special Correspondent of Indianapolis "Journal" and Cincin- 
nati " Enquirer;" Col. J. B. Dodge and Ella M. Nave, Indianapolis 
"Sentinel;" Eleanor Stackhouse, Chicago "Tribune;" J. A. 
Parker, Winchester (Tenn.) Franklin County "News;" W. W. 
Wellman, Sullivan (Ind.) "Democrat;" Jno. A. Guymon, In- 
dianapolis "Independent;" Marie L. Andrews, Indianapolis 
"Herald;" Nettie Ransford, Indianapolis "The Eastern Star;" 
Mary E. Cardwill, New Albany (Ind.) "Tribune;" L. May 
Wheeler, Springfield (O.j Daily "Gazette'' and Weekly "Budget." 



The Convention was honored with the privilege of entertain- 
ing Hon. and Mrs. John George Bourinot, of Ottawa, Canada. 



James Whitcomb Riley, Clarence A. and William Alfred 
Hough are cousins, which may account for their similarity and 
popularity as recitationists. 

L. May Wheeler, 
Mary E. Cardwill, 

Secretaries. 



MAN AN EVOLUTION. 



MAX A\ lA^OLl^TlOX 



By T. B. Redding, A.M.; .Ph.D.; F. R.M. S.; Foreign Associate Member 
of the French Society of Hygiene, etc. 

The theory of evolution has taken a deep hold upon the thought 
of the best thinkers of the world. The doctrine is still a theory. 
It is not an established fact, and it is impossible that it ever should 
be a demonstrated fact. Additional facts, tending to prove or dis- 
prove the theory, may be discovered. But whether true or false, 
it has had much to do in recent scientific development, and has 
tended, in a remarkable manner, to quicken and stimulate an interest 
in the study of nature. 

In this article I shall not attempt to give the scientific facts in 
detail, upon which I base my conclusions, but will give some of 
the general principles found to exist, and so much of the facts as 
is necessary to make clear my position. Neither shall I attempt to 
exhaust, nor use anything like all of the passages found in Revela- 
tion, which tend, in my opinion, to suj^i^ort the doctrine of evolution. 

In claiming that man is an evolution, I do so only qualifiedly. 
Neither do I claim, nor believe, that he is an evolution without law, 
plan, or design, but that he has come into existence through a vast 
series of ages and changes, under law, coming up from the lowest 
of the earth, in continuity, as the ultimate end and product of the 
purpose and design of a Supreme Intelligence — as the embodiment 
or expression of a Divine concept; — that all prior existences of 
matter, in its simplest forms, its multitudinous coordinated relations 
as compounds, in its vitalized manifestations in plant life, in its 
higher exhibitions in the animal world, dowered with sentient energy, 
instinct, and animal thought, were essential preliminary steps to 
man's existence. 

We cannot conceive a compound to exist j^rior to the elements 
of which it is composed. We cannot conceive of a union and 
aggregation of atoms and molecules before those atoms and mole- 
cules had an existence as separate individuals. We cannot conceive 
water to have existed before the existence of oxygen and hydrogen. 
Hence we must believe that matter, whatever it is, existed first in 
its simplest form ; that compounds, combinations, and correlations 
of matter were secondary. We can conceive it possible for matter 
to exist in its simplest, most elemental form, separate and apart from 



174 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

the laws of chemical afifinity, cohesion, gravitation and other forces, 
or energies, which bring ultimate elements together, and hold them 
as compounds and combinations. It is generally admitted that 
matter had a beginning ; that the time was when this world was 
not; that the time was when matter came into existence, and the 
world began to be. When and how matter began to be has not yet 
been discovered by science. Revelation informs us that, " In the 
beginning God created the heavens and the earth ; " that the earth 
"was without form ; " that "darkness was upon the face of the deep." 
These descriptions take us back to a time when matter existed only 
in its simplest elementary form, having no interaction upon nor re- 
lation of one atom with another. Whether there be one or many 
simple elements makes no difference. Let us conceive of them as 
merely existing, not yet subject to law compelling unions or com- 
binations, and free from all controlling energies, such as gravitation, 
affinity, and cohesion. Here we have the condition described in 
Genesis — confusion, darkness, chaos. But a time came, in the 
order of creation, when the Spirit of God brooded over and moved 
upon the " face of the deep ; " a time when he sent forth, or called 
into action, force, energy, law, and decrees for the government of 
matter, and out of which was evolved or grew the inorganic uni- 
verse. Through these he said, " Let there be light, and there was 
light" — not as an independent creation, not as a thing, but as a 
mode of motion, as a product of those energies. Through this 
brooding of the Spirit of God, through the calling into being, or 
into activity, law and energy, matter became endowed with all the 
powers manifested by it in the inorganic universe. Possibly, at 
the same time, matter was endowed with other potencies and 
energies which successively manifested themselves in after ages. 
Hence we have : 

(i.) The creation of matter in its elemental form. 

(2.) The laws by, under and through which the elements are 
enabled to unite and enter into the vast multitude of unions that 
exist, or may come to exist, throughout the inorganic world, giving 
manifestations of light, heat, electricity, sound, chemical affinity, 
and other physical phenomena. This energy I will call dynamic 
energ-y. Then follow, in succession, either in origin and mani- 
festation, or in manifestation at least : 

(3.) Vital energy. 

(4.) Sentient energy. 

(5.) Intellectual and spiritual energy. 

There is, apparently, nothing in the first that can lead to the 
second, and our intuitions seem to force upon us the thought that 
the second must have come from a creative act ; that there is no 



MAN AN EVOLUTION. I 75 

law without a law-giver ; that law and energy must be the expression 
of the will of a Supreme Intellect, which acts upon matter, either 
at the first, or subse(|uently, it matters not which. 

Scientists all agree that countless ages must have passed before 
the first dawn of lile in this world, and that plant life was the first 
to make its appearance. Until vital energy, the first form of life, 
trembled into being, in the lowest form of the single-celled plant, 
no power had acted, nor seemingly inhered in atoms, nor in any of 
the energies, thus far manifested, capable of advancmg farther than 
the inorganic world. There was no life manifest. After the ener- 
gies already liberated had performed their work, and matter had 
been moulded and fitted for higher purposes, in its many com- 
pounds and coordinated relations, another entirely new, or hitherto 
inoperative energy, made its appearance in the universe in the 
form of plant life, or vitality, and matter began to live. All other 
pre-existing energies, acting upon matter, became subject to this 
new energy, and matter became organized. This vitality, this new 
energy — which takes the inorganic and makes it become organic — 
which takes the lifeless and makes it alive, can not take the simple 
element of matter, act upon and convert it into living stuff, but 
acts only upon combinations of matter, such as water, carbonic 
dioxide and ammonia, tearing them asunder, and lifting them out 
of the inorganic into the realm of life and organization. Until 
the first step, the creation of the atom, the second could not exist, 
and until after the second (the sending forth, or calling into being or 
activity, the energies controlling atoms and producing compounds,) 
vitality had no foothold. Each of the two preceding steps were 
essential and preliminary to the existence of the third. 

Vitality is not a change of nature, direction, or relation intro- 
duced among the energies and forces which reigned in the inor- 
ganic domain, so that they act differently and other than before, 
but is unlike all other energies ; is a new, and hitherto non-existing 
or non-acting energy, which now dominates and overcomes, 
controls and directs, in a certain degree and to a certain extent, all 
that preceded. But this new energy can only do so much, can 
rise only so high. It can make the lifeless live, but it can not 
make that living thing feel, nor think. It can tear inorganic com- 
pounds to pieces and take the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitro- 
gen composing them, and out of them weave a beautiful, living, 
blooming thing ; but it cannot make that plant a sentient, planning, 
reasoning, conscious thing. The plant is an evolution in part, but 
is it wholly so ? It is an evolution out of pre-existing matter, but 
not from or through pre-acting, pre-exis*ting energy, but because 
of a new energy sent forth to control, modify, and to act with and 
upon pre-existing matter and energy. In a broad sense it is an 



176 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

evolution, for matter pure and simple, and the energies controlling 
that matter, were essential as objects upon which vital energy could 
act. There is no break in continuity, but an addition, an accession 
of energy, or a new activity of energy, or an energy acting in an 
entirely new way, which, we can not now determine. 

If we speak of these several steps leading up to plant life, 
relatively, we may justly call the first step the lowest, and the third 
the highest, thus far attained; and we may truly say that the plant 
was evolved and curiously wrought, "in the lowest parts of the 
earth," as the Psalmist says in speaking of man, " Rukamthi 
b'thachtiyoth arets." Psa. 139, 15. 

Did vital energy potentially contain sentient energy ? It is 
possible, but it is impossible to demonstrate that it did. It is agreed 
that plant life had the world all to itself many ages before sentient 
energy claimed dominion. During all these ages only one form of 
life, that of plants, existed ; but in the progress of thousands of 
centuries, the time came for another life to find its home upon the 
earth, and the animal stepped into existence, bringing with it 
sentient energy, such as animal feeling, sense, thought, instinct, and 
memory. Whether a sudden appearance or a slow evolution, makes 
no difference. It was, no doubt, the lowest form of animal life, 
lying extremely close to the border of plant life. But the first and 
lowest manifestation of sentient energy was not a mere manifesta- 
tion of vital energy. There is not the faintest shadow of evidence 
that vital energy has ever quit its primitive work of assimilation, 
elimination, and tissue formation, to feel and see, taste and smell, 
hear and think, reason and sing, or soar and fly. 

We find vital energy, in every animal, associated with sentient 
energy, but the work of vital energy in the animal is the same as 
that of vital energy in the plant, that of assimilation, elimination, 
secretion, and tissue formation, and its powers are taxed to the 
utmost in its own field, without assuming the labor of sentient 
energy. It would be exceedingly interesting to enter the field of 
sentient energy, and trace it in all its manifold presentations, 
especially as shown in instinct, animal thought, feeling, and passion, 
but I shall have to pass all these by for the present. Whence came 
this sentient energy? Science says, "I know not." Revelation 
says, "God said, Let the waters bring forth the moving creature 
that hath life" (sherets nephesh chaiyah), literally, swarms of living 
souls, and, " God said. Let the earth bring forth the living creature 
(nephesh chaiyah), after his kind, and it was so.'' Gen. i, 20 
and 24.* 

*A number of quotations are made in this article from an article of mine entitled 
"Biology and Religion; or Harmonies of God's Revelations," published in 1886-7, '" "The 
Methodist Pulpit and Pew," but, as I make some changes in them, I have not marked them 
as quotations. 



MAN AN EVOLUTION. 1 77 

May we not, then, justly conclude that another impulse of 
the Divine Mind sent forth, or called into activity, the energy that 
became sentient life, or animal life, with all its instincts and 
powers? This is the fourth step in the process of evolution. 
There is continuity and accession of energy. 

The animal could not exist before the plant. The animal can 
not assimilate elemental matter, nor the compounds and products of 
elemental matter, nor inorganic matter in any form, with but one or 
two exceptions, but assimilates and appropriates to its uses only 
organized matter — that which, at some time, has been made alive 
by the plant. 

Vitality tears asunder the molecular structure of inorganic 
compounds with a view to nutrition, secretion, elimination, and 
absorption. The upbuilding of structures, the assimilation of food, 
and the repair of waste, though first found in the plant, is also 
found in the animal, with associate energies, and performs nearly 
the identical work in the one that it does in the other. In the plant 
it is supreme, but in the animal it is subordinate to sentient energy. 

We find, in the animal, elements and combinations of ele- 
ments — the various energies of the inorganic world ; the vitalizing, 
assimilating, structure-forming energy, first revealed in the plant; 
and the instinct, feeling, thought, and sentient energies of the 
animal, all working in harmony, the lower yielding obedience to 
the higher. Nowhere do we find a new or different energy, or force, 
introduced to do the work done by a pre-existing force or energy. 
In all cases, whether in plant or animal, or in man, living matter is 
practically the same in substance, structure, and function. Hence 
we find in animals two lives, vital and sentient, a fact also attested 
by Revelation. In Genesis 7, 15 and 22, where we have the 
expressions, "the breath of life," the word "life" in the Hebrew, 
is not chaiyah, but the plural chaiyeem, lives. The same plural form 
is used a number of times elsewhere, as in Genesis 2, 7 and 9 ; 
3, 22 and 24; and I can not but think that there was a purpose in 
using the plural form. That purpose was to express tlie two-fold 
nature of animal life. 

In the course of time the world was prepared for a new 
creature. In what form, or how he came into being, science 
can not tell. Whether through countless ages or gradual evolution 
of some animal in the direction of manhood, and a final culmination 
into man, in a low, savage, semi-animal state, or whether by one 
mighty bound, through the inflowing energy of a new life, we do 
not know. Science can not give us any light upon this subject 
beyond conjecture. Now we see man enter the world, a feeble, 
rapidly developing, sentient thing, with wonderful potencies and 
powers. He comes to us : 



lyS WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

"A wondrous little fellow, with dainty double chin, 
And chubby cheeks and dimples for the smiles to blossom in." — Riley. 

A human being, in its first stages of individual existence, is 
one of the simplest structures conceivable — a mere, non-nucleated, 
tiny sphere of homogeneous, structureless, colorless, living matter, 
composed of a few atoms of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitro- 
gen, and a very few other elements, associated with a capacity, or 
energies, which give to it all its marvelous potencies, and out of 
which spring its great future developments and possibilities. This 
single-celled child, like the single-celled plant or animal, grows by 
the assimilation of food; but, unlike the plant, it and the animal 
must have food which has once lived in plant or animal. 

The processes of assimilation, growth, secretion, and elimina- 
tion are very similar in all living organisms, and often, apparently, 
identical. The child cell, like the simplest plant cell, draws into 
itself food, and the vitalized matter of that cell converts that food 
into living matter, and thus the single cell grows, and divides and 
sub-divides into many cells. Every organic structure begins life 
in the state and condition in which the protozoan spends its whole 
life. Why does the monad protozoan begin and end life as a single 
cell ? Why do other simple animals begin life as one cell and 
become two, and end life as two cells? and others, as four, or 
eight, or sixteen cells; and others, as we go higher, highly compli- 
cated organisms of countless millions of cells forming many organs 
and parts, all wonderfully and delicately co-ordinated and adjusted 
to each other? And why is it, that, through countless ages, the 
monad still remains a monad, and the two celled animal still 
remains a two-celled animal, and the hydra still remains a hydra, 
and the horse still remains a horse, and man still remains a man ? 
Why, through all these countless ages and generations, do these 
changes in the individual take place, but the species continue on 
and on without a shadow of turning? Some tell us that life is 
the result of organization, but we see and think that organization 
is the result of life, but what that life is we cannot tell. We know 
only matter, energy, and intelligence, and these only in their 
phenomena. 

We are told by some that the eye is stimulated into existence 
by light, but light is only motion, and they tell us that the lungs 
come into being through the stimulus of air, but how is it that the 
eye is shaped, formed, matured, and fitted for its work months 
before a single ray of light penetrates its lenses ? And how does 
it happen that the lungs are built up and supplied with all their 
tubes, air spaces, cells, and blood vessels, and with every cell and 
fibre completed, adjusted, and coordinated, so as to be ready for 



MAN AN EVOLUTION. 1 79 

instant and perfect action the moment the child is brought into the 
outside life, where the lungs first come in contact with the air? 
All this work is completed before the air begins to stimulate. 

The hand, with its marvelous powers of position and motion ; 
its delicacy of touch ; its power to help and soothe, to strike down 
or hurt; its varied gestures, its open invitation of welcome, or 
firmly clenched threat to smite when "wrong resists," was fash- 
ioned and formed in darkness and stillness, while all of its marvelous 
joints, muscles, tendons, nerves, and tissues were made long before 
they were to perform a single function. 

The eye, that exquisitely combined microscope, telescope, and 
camera, with its systems of lenses, muscles, nerves, and glands, 
vessels and coats; the swift winged light's laboratory wherein daily, 
hourly, momentarily, are painted the most perfect pictures of things 
on earth, in air and sky, and in far distant worlds — scenes of beauty, 
grandeur, and terror ; of sweetness, sadness and woe ; the soul s 
mystic window, through which the spirit looks out and beholds the 
universe and the handiwork of God; or through which leap the 
fierce flames of passion's fire ; or from whence glide gently and 
softly kind and sympathetic looks, the sweet angels of mercy, sym- 
pathy and love, bearing comfort and love to hearts bowed down in 
sorrow; that eye, now looking upon what is nigh, the next moment 
leaping into the unmeasured depths of space, began, a few months 
ago, to exist as a single cell of living stuff, without nerve, lens, 
muscle, gland, or part, and wove and spun, in the laboratory of 
life, all of these wonderful appliances, putting every one in its right 
place, giving to every one its proper function, and, while yet in 
darkness, with not a single ray of light, so coordinated the many 
parts, that when completed and brought into the presence of light, 
every part performed its allotted work, and the completed marvel 
had but to look and see. 

The brain, spinal cord, and nerves, with their cells, ganglia, 
fibres, and sheaths, an exceedingly complicated net-work of tele- 
graphic batteries and lines, reaching every part of the body, ready 
to carry to every point the commands of the soul, and to receive 
and bear back to its spiritual master, through eye and ear, nose 
and tongue, touch and taste, a complete report of all the changing 
universe; while other lines, night and day, ceaselessly, for many 
years, without a moment's delay, preside over, regulate, and control 
the action of stomach, arteries, veins, capillaries, and glands; the 
throbing of heart and pulse ; the heaving chest and breathing lungs, 
without the slightest consciousness of the owner, and whether asleep 
or awake; all these were formed, adjusted, clothed in their sheaths 
and coverings, divided and subdivided into invisible threads and 



lOO WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

loops and spirals, and combined into one harmonious whole, having 
indescribable powers and possibilities, when and where there could 
be no use for them, and when and where there was no consciousness 
of their existence. 

All these parts, and many other wonderfully endowed parts 
and organs, were fashioned, formed, and perfected out of, and from 
the single celled egg from which the man was evolved, according 
to a definite, persistent, ever present plan and purpose, working 
when there was none of them, and bringing them into being, form, 
shape, and relation, when they had no work to do, and so coordi- 
nating them as to form the perfect man, composed of untold decil- 
Hons of cells, yet every part performing its allotted work and func- 
tion without trespassing upon any other. All this for what? That 
a man may live, act, think, suffer, weep, rejoice, praise God, and 
die? Does death end all? The inspiration that giveth under- 
standing answers, NO. 

At first a single cell ; then an aggregation of cells, but without 
organs, vessels, brain, or nerves, and, apparently, without sentient, 
intellectual, or spiritual energy, yet, in a few months, man has all 
these. Whence do they come ? Was this sentient, intellectual, and 
spiritual energy hidden away in the tiny cell, a part of its endow- 
ments, waiting for an appropriate time to manifest themselves in 
that, and in a countless succession of beings, or is the living stuff 
composing the cell only endowed with such properties, energies, and 
afifinities, as shall enable it, at the proper time, to receive inflowing 
streams of sentient, intellectual, and spiritual energy coming from 
the great Source of all energy, who, in the early mornmg Of creation, 
on the 5th and 6th creative days, said, "Let the earth bring forth 
the living thing," and "Let us make man in our own image, after 
our likeness — and man became a living soul." He was not a living 
soul, an intellectual, moral being, when first "formed of the dust 
of the ground," but only became such, began to be such, after that 
God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives." The fact that 
God breathed into his nostrils the "breath of lives," and that then, 
and not until then, he became a living soul, a spiritual being, seems 
to suggest that his spiritualizing power or energy did not come until 
his vital and animal nature had been developed and completed to 
receive the spiritual nature ; — that man as created by God, was first 
matter, earth; then a vitalized being; then a sentient being; then 
an intellectual, spiritual' being. So it is now. First pure elemental 
matter becomes compound, non-living matter, by and through the 
dynamic energies; then the non-living becomes living through vi- 
tality. At the next step, we find this vitalized matter, associated 
with sentient energy, rising into instinct, thought, reason, memory, 



MAN AN EVOLUTION. l8l 

love, and hate, as seen in animals : then spiritual and higher intel- 
lectual energy became grafted upon these, so that what was before 
an animal only, became a moral, spiritual, intellectual, progressive, 
God-grasping, and God-loving being. 

Can a thing grow without an accession of substance ? Certainly 
not. Can the microscopic ovum, with its vital, sentient, and other 
energies, multi})ly and develop into the human race of all ages, 
numbering countless millions, with the aggregated energies and 
powers of the whole, without an accession of energy from some 
exhaustless source ? If we call all the energy, of whatever kind, 
that can and does inhere in, and is possessed by any individual cell 
of living matter, a unit of energy, a unit of potentiality, ought not 
we to expect to find in two like cells two units of that energy, and 
in a million cells of that matter a million units of energy? If, 
in the lowest conceivable form or mass of sentient being, there be 
one unit of sentient energy, shall we not find many units of the 
same energy in higher forms? And if, in the lowest conceivable 
intellectual and spiritual being, there is found one unit of intellectual 
and spiritual energy, shall we not, probably, find increased and 
multiplied units of this energy, as we ascend to the higher intelli- 
gences and spiritual existences ? Is there not, must there not be a 
source, or fountain of energy, from whence increase and accession 
must come? Was not "the tree of lives" (ets chaiyeem) of Gen. 
ii., 9, and iii., 22 and 24 such a source. The word "life" in each 
place of the original is plural. Revelation tells us that the God — 
Christ is "the beginning of creation;" "the first born of every 
creature;" "a quickening spirit;" "the life of the world," c\:c. 
May He not, then, be that source of energy? But those who 
receive this suggestion can and must do so through faith, for there 
can be no demonstration in science. But may we not confidently 
conclude that each living thing, according to its rank, has a capacity^ 
a kind of quantivalence, a property, potentiality, or whatever it 
may be called, to receive and draw from some source of energy, 
an inflow of energy, as the individual may need, or be capable 
of assimilating ? 

But in what does man differ from plants and animals? He 
has vitality — the power to grow, to assimilate food by converting 
it into living matter, and the power to form structures from that 
living matter. The plant does as much ; so does the, animal. This 
is his merely vegetative nature. He also has instincts and the 
sentient energies common to the animal — some of them in a very 
high degree, and some of them in an inferior degree. In these 
respects he is only an aggregation, a union of atoms ; a vitalized 
plant ; a sentient animal, having something in common with all 



102 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

below him. But he is more. He has a moral, intellectual, spiritual 
energy or nature, entirely wanting in the living things below him — 
a something possessed by him alone. He alone thinks of the 
future, believes in God, spiritual existences, immortality and cor- 
related duties and obligations. He alone invents, prints, investi- 
gates, builds cities, establishes institutions of learning, religion^ and 
benevolences. He alone has thought to interpose bits of glass 
between his eye and the objective world about him, and thereby 
to increase his powers of vision hundreds and thousands of times, 
till he sees, in a drop of stagnant water, a world of life, beauty, 
vital and sentient energy — or looking out spaceward, an infinite 
series of suns and blazing worlds. We do not find anything in the 
existences below him from which we can reasonably infer he derived 
these superior powers. We find no rudiments of them in the animal 
world — not even a hint. All will admit that countless millions of 
animals died, manifesting in their lives every degree of sentient 
energy, untold ages before man first trod the green vales, or scaled 
the mountain heights of the earth. Whence, then, this higher 
energy manifested in man ? Did it lie dormant, a mere potentiality, 
all these unnumbered ages, and survive through the fife and chaos 
of inorganic matter, and all the wreck and ruin of the buried gen- 
erations of the past? Or was there, somewhere in the universe, all 
this while, a fountain filled with intellectual, spiritual energy, ready 
at the opportune time to flow in and mingle with, dominate, and 
control the pre-existing or premanifested energies? Or shall we 
say, "God breathed into him the breath of lives, and he became a 
living soul?" Revelation says, "God formed man, and breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of life," {idshmath chaiyecm — breaih of lives), 
"and man became a living soul ' (vayheeha-adam I'nephesh chaiyah— 
became or grew into a living soul). "In the image of God created 
he him." Gen. i., 27; ii., 7. In other words, before man could 
exist as man, his vital and animal nature, with their physical basis, 
supplying a home, a laboratory, implements, and tools, were first 
given him, and then, when he came into possession of his heritage 
of intellectual and spiritual energy, the last and grandest manifesta- 
tion of God's creative energies, of which we have any knowledge, 
he became man. 

Without elemental matter, without compounds or unions of 
that matter, without the vital energy of the plant, and without the 
sentient energy of the afiimal, man could not have existed as he is 
now constituted. He is an evolution from and through these. 
Upon these have been engrafted his superior and distinguishing 
forces, energies, and potencies. 

It seems to me, therefore, that man is an evolution, not in the 
sense that some use the term, but in a higher, nobler sense. I 



MAN AN EVOLUTION. 1 83 

believe that he has, through a succession of ages, come up out of 
" the lowest parts of the earth,'" from matter in its elemental form ; 
from that which existed when darkness was upon the face of 
the deep. Out of this elemental condition matter emerged into 
compounds through the ethero-dynamic energies. Then came vital 
energy, supplementing all that preceded, and lifted these material 
compounds from the realm of death into the realm of life — a 
broad and majestic realm, full of growth, fragrance, beauty, and 
bloom. In the course of ages sentient energy usurped the throne, 
and established her kingdom in this world of vital energy, and 
lifted vitalized matter into the higher realm of sense, instinct, and 
thought, till that which before only grew, budded and bloomed, and 
bore fruit, began to run and leap, feel and think, see and know. 
But evolution did not stop here, nor did she throw away that which 
preceded, but utilized all that went before — the ethero-dynamic 
forces doing all that they could do ; vital energy doing all that it 
could do — all that was to be done by vitality in all time and in all 
existences — and sentient energy performed all the functions of 
sentient life everywhere, and in every sentient thing; but they 
could not lift the animal world into the realm of intellectual, moral, 
and spiritual being. A new energy, an intellectual, spiritual en- 
ergy, dawned and flowed in upon all these others, and lifted the 
animal above the mere realm of sentient life, instinct, and animal 
thought, carrying all these others along into the higher realm of 
intellectual, moral, and spiritual life, till man became a trinity 
having vital, sentient moral and spiritual life, holding in their grasp 
matter and all the energies havmg connection with the inorganic 
and organic beings lying in the line of succession, a true evolution 
from " the lowest parts of the earth." 

At what periods of evolution, (and of embryonal life, as well), 
sentient, intellectual, and spiritual energy became a part of the 
human being, is shrouded in impenetrable mystery and darkness; 
but there is a time during the development of the human being 
when they are not, probably, so associated. Science has, so far, 
been unable to discover when this inflowing cf energy takes place. 
If we turn to Revelation we find that the Psalmist savs : "Thine eyes 
did see my substance {golmi), yd being unper/ect, and in thy book all 
were written — in continuance were fashioned — when none of 
them" — Psa. 139, 16. Again, inverse 15 of same Psalm, it is said: 
"I was curiously wrought (elaborated, developed), in the lowest 
(parts) of the earth." The word " parts" is not necessarily implied 
in, nor expressed by, the original. " My substance yet being unper- 
fcct,'" is represented, in the Hebrew, by one word, golmi, from golem, 
from the vootgo/am, meaning an unformed 7nass, an etnbryo, unwrought 



154 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

substance, and necessarily carries with it the thought of something in 
the process of evokition, in succession of times, yamim, yutstsaroo, 
which in continuance were fashioned — literally, "days they were 
fashioned." Yamim is the plural of jw//, day, and involves the 
thought, in this connection, of time consisting of a succession of 
days or periods. In the same verse it is declared, " My substance 
{otsmi) was not hid from thee when I was made in secret and 
curiously wrought in the lowest of the earth." The word here 
translated substance is ols?ni, from otsem, which has for its root 
atsam, which primitively expresses the thought of binding up, tying 
up, bindi?ig fast, hence, intransitively, to be strong, mighty, power- 
ful. The feminine form of the noun, etsem, usually means bone; 
the masculine form, otsem, strength, the bones, the body. It 
involves the thought of completeness, and, to my mind, conveys 
the thought that before the body, soul and spirit of man were 
created, while yet to be, this triune man, in his completeness of 
structure and strength, with all his endowments, capabilities, and 
possibilities, in time and in eternity, had an existence in the thought 
of God, while, as yet, man had no objective existence — '■'■when 
there tvas not one of them." That, because of this subjective exist- 
ence of man in his completeness, and in his evolution and incom- 
pleteness, in the thought of God, all things, from the beginning, 
were framed and fashioned, in succession, with the plan and purpose 
of ultimately evolving man, an epitome of all the creative energies 
of the Almighty. 

There are numerous passages of Revelation that strongly sup- 
port, in my opinion, the doctrine of evolution, but what I have 
quoted will give an idea of my interpretation, and this article is 
too long to further pursue the subject here. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



I310GRAPH1CAL SlvETCHES. 



SARAH T. BOLTON. 

BY L. MAY WHEELER. 

What need to weave a weft of rhymes ? 
A myriad bards have rung their chimes 

Since time was young. 
Of great or small, of false or true, 
In poesy there's nothing new, 

Since Homer sung, 

is the latest from one who can fittingly be called the mother of the 
sisterhood of Indiana women poets. 

A glance takes in a score of names who bear the charm of 
song, and one lingers, uncertain which of all doth sing the sweeter, 
but she who is growing old so gracefully that the twilight has not 
dimmed by its mellow light, but has added graces to her muse, 
who still sings as every child of nature should sing, is Sarah T. 
Bolton, of Indianapolis, Indiana. 

It was in Newport, Kentucky, in December. 1814, that the 
first year of her life began, and in 1828 when her literary and 
poetic work received marked and merited public notice, through 
the press of Indiana and Ohio, especially Cincinnati papers. 

Her first poem appeared in the Madison, Indiana "Banner," 
of which the editor. Col. Arion, said: "Our fair, highly gifted 
correspondent is not yet fourteen years old." 

From that time to her marriage, in 1831, she was putting into 
verse "thoughts that breathe and words that burn." The years 
that followed were thickly braided with practical things, and time 
for poetic and literary pursuits was limited; but in 1837 she sang of 

"INDIANA." 

Home of my youth! thy shining sand. 

Thy forests and thy streams 
Are beautiful as fairy-land 

Displayed in fancy's dreams. 



Ibb WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

And though thy star of destiny 

A while is overcast, 
Yet thou shalt rise amidst the free; 

Thy clouds will soon be past. 

Thy children will redeem thee yet, 

Young giant of the West, 
And disenthral'd thy name shall set 

On Freedom's shining crest. 

Mrs. Bolton has gathered burden for her songs in echoes and 
omens of war, and the calm of peace. In human nature, and in 
that which buds and blossoms. In the dews of night, and the rains 
of day. In sentiment and religion, legend and imagery, and that 
which inspires her muse actuates her thought, and when the world 
has found it, both finger tip and brain metal are indicative of 
strength. 

" Till dark oppression from the earth is riven, 
Sing, till from every land and every sea, 
One universal triumph song is given, 
To hail the long-expected jubilee, 
When every bond is broke, and every vassal free." 

Again she sings : 

We stretch out our hands to the future, 

And fly from the joys of the past; 
And of the bright dreams Hope has woven, 

The sweetest is always the last. 

This brief outline of a life fraught with realized possibilities, 
now five years past " three score and ten," can conclude with 
nothing better than extracts from one of her late poems : 

"LIFE." 

Life it is long since first we met — 

We've borne some stress of weather. 
And had our share of care and fret, 

But, still, we walk together. 

Still walk together, hand in hand, 

But not as when we started. 
Away, in life's fair morning land, 

Hopeful and happy-hearted. 



D. I.. PAINR. 189 

The sky was pranked with deeper blue; 

The sunshine warmer, brighter — 
The roses wore a richer hue; 

The lily-flowers were whiter. 

The wild birds sung of sunny lands, 

Of freedom, love, and pleasure — 
The wavelets linked their dimpled hands 

And danced to rythmic measure. 

The clouds were ships, or seemed to be, 

With sails all set and flowing, 
Bearing over land and sea, 

Where we had fain been going. 

Now we are going home, old friend, 

From long and sad endeavor; 
A light is shining, at the end, 

But just beyond the river. 
* * * * * -x- * 

I wonder if our friends will wear 

The dear familiar faces, 
And, when we meet them over there? 

Respond to our embraces? 

And there, beyond the shores of night. 

Perchance, our souls may borrow, 
A larger measure of delight. 

From memory of past sorrow. 



D. L. PAINE.* 

I'.Y MARY E. CARDWII.L. 

The jjoet and journalist, "Dan." Paine, as he is familiarly 
known to his many friends, was born at Richmond, Maine, Oct. 
18, 1830. A few years later his father removed with his family to 
Bangor, where young " Dan." grew up to years of early manhood. 
He began his career, like so many other American journalists, as 
a printer. But soon after he had learned his trade at the office of 
the "Bangor Mercury," he became the publisher of a paper, the 

'' See page 74. 



190 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

organ of the Sons of Temperance. This work he soon gave up to 
seek a new home and a new field of labor in the Northwest. 

Forty years ago the site upon which the city of Minneapolis 
stands, included on the east side of the river the little town of St. 
Anthony, and on the west the military reservation, Fort Snelling. 
In close proximity to the town and fort were the falls, which, since 
that time, by the wearing away of the rocks, and change of channel, 
have receded some distance northward. 

In 1850, when but twenty years of age, Mr. Paine left his 
Eastern home and friends, to become a resident of the far distant 
city of St. Anthony. He soon became closely identified with the 
town, and when the citizens resolved to give it a new name, he was 
appointed one of the three Commissioners to select an appropriate 
and a euphonious substitute for "St, Anthony." To-day it is one 
of Mr. Paine's proudest memories that to his final decision, Minne- 
apolis owes its beautiful name. 

There is something suggestive in the abandonment of a name 
sacred to the memory of a good Catholic Saint for one chosen from 
a barbarian tongue, chiefly for its beauty. Was it one of the little 
signs of the fulness of a new era, in which the intellectual and 
aesthetic, as well as the practical elements of American character 
were to bear rule instead of the more strictly devotional ? 

St. Anthony was accurately characterized as the falls city. In 
the language of the Dakotas, all water-falls were called Minnehaha. 
Naturally enough it occurred to one of the learned Commissioners 
to suggest the Indian name, with the Greek term for city added — 
Minnehaha-polis. It was quickly seen that the pronunciation and 
close compounding of the word would make the omission of one 
"ha" a necessity. Finally, at the suggestion of Mr. Paine, the 
aspirate was omitted for the sake of euphony, and Minneapolis 
thus became the name of the little city, which has since become 
the great Northwestern metropolis. 

Mr. Paine remained in Minneapolis until just before the war 
broke out, when he started for the far South with his wife, who was 
then, and for many years afterward, an invalid. When they reached 
Memphis, the news which caused the whole country to tremble 
with a dread foreboding was received: "John Brown has been 
hanged in Virginia for inciting negroes to insurrection." Mr. Paine 
was called upon to rejoice with his Southern neighbors over the 
event, and to "hurrah for the hanging." He refused, and found 
immediately that the South was then no place for him. He took 
the first boat that came along that night for the North. 

About the time the war broke out Mr. Paine went to Indian- 
apolis, where he has since resided. He has been engaged upon 



STEPHEN S. HARDING. I91 

most of the leading papers of that city, and for twenty years, from 
the beginning of the publication of the "News" until the present 
time, he has held a position on its editorial staff. 

In spite of the exacting duties of an editor, Mr. Paine has 
found time to write some of the sweetest of the verse which has 
been given to the world by Indiana poets, and to contribute occa- 
sionally to literary ])eriodicals. 

Failing health for several years past has compelled him to relax 
his journalistic and literary duties somewhat. But while his pen is 
limited in his own special work, he finds time and strength to use 
it in helping, by correspondence, to carry on a work which most 
nobly characterizes him, and which has given him the right pre- 
eminently to be called the friend of literary aspirants. No youthful 
struggler in the literary field ever went in vain to Mr. Paine for 
advice. And from none was there ever received advice more 
helpful and sincere. With the same kindliness he points out faults 
and gives merited encouragement. All overlndiana and elsewhere, 
writers who have worthily achieved success, bless the name of 
" Dan. Paine" for his words of cheer when they were most needed. 
His gentle, tender nature, his unselfishness and patience under his 
present affliction, have endeared him not only to the literary frater- 
nity of Indiana, but to all who know him. 



STEPHEN S. HARDING.=5'- 

BY M. L. A. 

Stephen S. Harding was born in Otisco, New York, February 
24, 1808. In 1820 he moved with his parents to Ripley County, 
Ind., where he lived the life of a backwoods boy, in a State 
where pioneering meant literally a battle with wild nature for the 
means of existence. His opportunities for education were meagre, 
yet he early showed oratorical talent, and he obtained a sufficient 
amount of schoolbook knowledge to begin life on his own account, 
as a teacher, at sixteen years of age. A year or two later, following 
his natural bent, he left the teacher's desk and ferule to study law 
in the office of William R. Morris, at Brookville, Indiana. In 
1829 he opened an office in Versailles, Ripley County, where in 
time his magnificent voice and ability as an advocate gained him an 

■■' See page 124. 



192 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

enviable reputation in his profession. He became well-known 
throughout the State and country, and his prominence was 
enhanced by his early adoption of strong abolition sentiments. In 
1862 he was appointed Governor of Utah, and pursued an ag- 
gressive policy toward the Mormons. 

Governor Harding is an honorary member of the " Western 
Association of Writers. " He has always been in sympathy with 
the advancement of literature, and has written many fine poems, 
which were in Major Gordon's hands for publication at the time of 
his death. 

Governor Harding, now nearly eighty-two years of age and 
totally blind, is a resident of Milan, Ripley County, Indiana. The 
following lines were written since "darkness closed upon" his 
sight : 

"MY CREED." 

I read, re-read the jarring creeds 

That teachers tell me are divine, 
To satisfy my longing needs 

Through all life's phases, cloud and shine ; 

Then sat me down to ponder well. 
For what is truth I could not tell, 
And reason made me infidel ; 
Not infidel to God and his eternal good, 
But infidel to priest and priestly word. 
And yet within my longing soul 
There was the need beyond control ; 
Then darkness closed upon my sight 
So dark there was no ray of light, 
When softly on my senses fell 
A voice, from whence I could not tell : 
" Mortal, be merciful, be just ; 
All else of creed is but as dust. , 

w; Be thus not for reward of Heaven, 

But for the love that God hath given, 

Be merciful, be just. 

And thou may'st hope and trust." 




rUau/rS Iroj^-^ 



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RENJAMIN DAVENPORT HOUSE. 1 93 

BENJAMIN DAVENPORT HOUSE. 

1!Y MEREDITH NICHOLSON. 

Benjamin Davenport House, the son of a Congregationalist 
minister, of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, was born at sea in the year 
1844. His mother died during his infancy. At the beginning of 
the civil war, House left the Boston school at which he had been 
placed, and enlisted in the army. Before the close of the war, 
owing to a severe wound, from which he never completely recov- 
ered, he was transferred to the veteran reserve corps, and removed 
to Indianapolis, where he died in July, 1887. 

In Indianapolis he engaged in journalistic work, being con- 
nected with the "Journal," and also several short-lived ventures. 
During his last years, a constant sufferer from asthma, and from 
the bullet wound received during the war, Mr. House wrote only 
when the impulse seized him. He finally devoted the greater part 
of his time to G. A. R. affairs, and for several years was Assistant 
Adjutant General for the Department of Indiana. 

Mr. House was a man of great personal magnetism, witty, 
well-read, and well-informed, though in the main self-educated, 
and a most agreeable companion when he cared to be. He was 
inclined to be cynical and morose, because of his ill health, and 
shunned general society, leading a semi-hermit life. In appearance 
Mr. House was tall and graceful, with a handsome head and face. 

Besides his journalistic work Mr. House wrote many poems, 
upon which he placed little value, preserving none written prior to 
1 88 1, but which cause him to be numbered among the poets of 
whom Indiana may well be proud. The merit of his poems lies in 
the depth of feeling, the beauty of the phrasing, the naturalness of 
the descriptive passages, and the musical rhythm, while their chief 
fault seems to have been .that he wrote carelessly, often repeating 
the same expression. 

Mr. House's war lyrics and love poems contain his best work. 
A strange conjunction, but one characteristic of the man. Of the 
first this stanza and couplet are good examples : 

For those we fought, in all my song, 

Not any thread of hate is blent, 

Who, urged by their environment. 
Against us battled for the wrong, 
******** 
Outbeaten when war's sounding flail 

Threshed out men's souls like grains of wheat. 



194 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Of his love poems, "Alter Ego," "At the Station," and 
" From the South," are sufificient to stamp House a poet, and no 
mere amateur. 

There is a sweet strain of sadness through Mr. House's poems, 
which is one cause of their having been so widely copied by the 
press. This characteristic causes his preference of Dante to Shake- 
speare, and Whittier to our other American poets, to appear less 
strange. 

In conclusion, the sextet from House's sonnet on the death of 
Grant may fittingly be quoted : 

O, folded hands, that held War's bridle reins : 

O, tired heart ! thou hast at last release 
For all earth's fret and sense-enslaving pains ; 

Let every sound of mournful wailing cease ; 
For thy white tent is pitched on restful plains, 

Where thou hast found at last the longed-for peace, 



ISAAC KINLEY. 



I'.Y 1!. S. P. 



Major Isaac Kinley, a leading politician and educator of 
Indiana, before the war, gained prominence also for his scientific 
and literary work, in the rich, early period of Western literature. 
He established two literary monthlies, represented Henry County 
in the State Senate, and was a member of the convention that 
framed the present State Constitution. He entered the war early 
in the struggle, and as Major of the Thirty-sixth Indiana regiment, 
was in command at the "Battle of Stone River," where he was 
terribly wounded, a minnie ball shattering his hip to pieces. No 
one thought he could live, but after months of close nursing by his 
devoted wife, a Boston woman, a poet and an artist, his life was 
saved. He was then made provost marshal of the Sixth Congres- 
sional District, and removed to Richmond, Ind. After the close 
of the war he was sent to the State Senate from Wayne County. 
A few years later, Mrs. Kinley's health beginning to fail, they 
removed from Richmond to San Jose, California, where they took 
charge of the San Jose College. The school was very successful, 
but after two years they were compelled to give it up, on account 



ISAAC KINLEY. T95 

of Mrs. Kinley's rapidly declining health. They removed to Los 
Angeles, where Mrs. Kinley died, and where Major Kinley still 
resides. The contmuance of his poetic vigor is evidenced in his 
beautiful contribution, 

"VOICES OF ANGELS." 

In the night time and the silence, 

In life's springtime, long ago, 
Came the voices of the angels. 

Speaking softly, speaking low. 

And the words the voices whispered, 

In the silence sounding clear. 
Sweeter than the harp Aiohan, 

Fell as music on the ear. 

And they told me of the beauty 

Of a life of love and truth, 
Told me of the way up higher, — 

Warned against the snares of youth. 

All along the toilsome journey, 

To my life's declining day. 
Softly whispered, have the voices, 

Tidings of the better way. 

Fired my soul with aspiration 

For the beautiful and true. 
Warned against the hidden pitfalls 

Lying on the journey through. 

Filled my soul with love for knowing, 
Thrilled me with the voice of song — 

Everything its joys bestowing, 
As I walked the way along. 

Taught the language of all nature — 

Lovely flower and stately tree, 
Hill and dale, and rugged mountain. 

Fount and stream, and raging sea; 

Taught the earth, the orbs of heaven, 

t'loating in the sea of blue; 
Oh, they have their angel voices 

That our God is speaking through! 



196 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Would you hear the angel voices, 
And the truths they tell me know? 

Listen in the silent night time, 
Listen in the time of woe. 

They will come with words of healing 
Gently falling on the ear — 

Though unheeded by the outward. 
To the inner senses clear. 

When temptations throng, alluring 
To the darkened paths of sin, 

Warning come the loving voices, 
Seeking back the soul to win. 

When Death's hand withdraws the dearest 
From the homes of earth away. 

And there comes the pall of blackness 
Mantling all the light of day. 

Hear we then the angel voices, 
Speaking softly, speaking low, 

And our spirits, dark with grieving, 
Learn the light of peace to know. 

Learn of lands beyond the River, 

Where the loved and lost ones dwell — 

Beauteous lands, the soul conceives them 
Fairer than our words can tell. 

Still I hear the angel voices. 
Speaking softly, speaking low, 

Loving now as in life's springtime, 
Sweet as in the long ago. 

When I drop from me the mortal. 

Pressing to the final goal, 
May I hear the silent voices, 

Speaking peace unto the soul ! 



WILLIAM D. GALLACHER. 197 

WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER.* 

BV M. K. C. 

In the Annals of the literature of the Middle States, no name 
is met with more frequently than that of William D. Gallagher, 
who was born in Philadelphia, August, 1808. Mr. Gallagher re- 
moved in 1816, with his mother and three brothers, to Cincinnati, 
where in 182 1 he was apprenticed to a printer. A few years later 
his literary career began, and when only nineteen years of age he 
attracted public attention in a friendly rivalry he maintained with 
Otway Curry, as "Roderick" and "Abdallah," in the Cincinnati 
"Chronicle" and Cincinnati "Sentinel." 

In 1830 Mr. Gallagher became the editor of the " Backwoods- 
man," a Henry Clay paper of Xenia, Ohio. This position he 
relinquished shortly afterwards to take the editorial charge of the 
Cincinnati " Mirror." He first appeared as an author in 1835, 
when he published two volumes of poems — "Erato No. i," con- 
taining "The Wreck of the Hornet," "Eve's Banishment," "To 
My Mother," etc., and "Erato No. 2." 

At about this time he published, in connection with Otway 
Curry, the "Hesperian," a literary monthly, at Columbus, Ohio. 

In 1841 Mr. Gallagher edited "The Poetical Literature of the 
West," a volume of selections from writers living in the Mississippi 
Valley. He afterwards became a member of the editorial staff 
of the Cincinnati "Commercial," and while filling this place was 
appointed by Tom. Corwin to a responsible position in the Treasury 
Department at Washington. 

For a number of years Mr. Gallagher has resided at Louisville, 
Kentucky, where, about two years ago, he met with a painful acci- 
dent, from which he has not entirely recovered. 

Mr. Gallagher is an honorary life member of the "Western 
Association of Writers," and although he has never been able to 
attend its conventions, he has always manifested the warmest inter- 
est in them. At one of the meetings he was represented by his 
fine poem, 

"THREE SCORE AND TEN." 



We wait for the gates to open, 
Wait together, Faith and I ; 

And the twilight of life comes sweetly, 
As the years glide gently by. 



' See page 120. 



198 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

From the past sweet voices call us, 

That calls from the future, too ; 
And we know by the tokens left us, 

Of a life serene and true. 
That soon, on some bright to-morrow, 

When the wings of this flesh are furled, 
We shall join them again, and forever, 

In that bright and better world. 



We know not, we ask not, we think not. 

For we do not care to learn — 
If the gates to that world are of jasper. 

Or on golden hinges turn ; 
Nor whether, when once within them. 

On diamonded streets we tread. 
So that then, in the light and the glory 

Of God, we shall meet with the dead — 
With the dead, who have gone before us, 

And the wings of the Spirit unfurled 
To the beauty, and brightness, and glory 

Of that other and better world. 



Still the old, familiar faces 

From old coverts sweetly look. 
And we hear glad voices singing. 

With the breeze and with the brook ; 
Yet we know they are but echoes 

And reflections from above ; 
So, from earth we turn to heaven 

For the beings of our love. 
And we wait for the gates to open. 

Wait together, Faith and I, 
While the night comes down with its shadows, 

And the day is drawing nigh. 



MARIE LOUISE ANDREWS. 1 99 



MARIE LOUISE ANDREWS. 



BY M. E. C. 



Not long ago an Eastern writer expressed a doubt of the possi- 
bility of an association of authors, and one of the reasons he gave 
was, that women would have to be admitted. The " Western Asso- 
ciation of Writers " owes its organization and firm establishment 
largely to the indefatigable efforts of a woman — its first secretary, 
Marie Louise Andrews. Mrs. Andrews is not an author in the 
technical sense of having written a book, yet she has gained a well- 
merited reputation as a ready and versatile writer of poems, essays, 
and sketches contributed to various periodical publications. Her 
interest in literary work is, however, something much broader than 
a purely personal matter. The development of Western literature, 
and its recognition by the country and the world at large, had long 
burdened her thoughts before she was given the opportunity to 
demonstrate the practicability of her ideas in the Association with 
which her name is so closely identified. 

Marie Louise Andrews, the second daughter of the late Dr. 
Benjamin and Louise A. Newland, was born at Bedford, Lawrence 
County, Indiana, where she grew up to womanhood. Her parents 
were people of education and individuality of character, and from 
them she inherited an early manifested taste for intellectual pur- 
suits. She received her education at St. Mary's of the Woods, vSt. 
Agnes Hall, Terre Haute, Ind., and at the Hungerford Institute, of 
Adams, New York. In May, 1875, she was married to Albert M. 
Andrews, of Seymour, Ind. In 1877 they removed to Conners- 
ville, where they have since resided. An only child, Carl, a bright 
boy, ten or eleven years of age, the idol of his mother's heart, has 
absorbed much of the time she would doubtless have devoted 
chiefiy to literary work. Over his education and mental develop- 
ment she has watched so closely that he is now a clear-headed, 
thoughtful, observant boy, her friend and companion, as well as 
her child. 

Mrs. Andrews is well versed in English, French, and German 
literatures, and in the Latin, French, and German languages, as 
well as in her own. She is also a brilliant conversationalist, excel- 



200 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

ling in repartee and wit, both in private conversation and as an 
impromptu speaker. 

The characteristics of her verse are well shown in her little poem 

"COMPENSATION," 

There are smiles in the morning and tears at night, 

The wide world over, 
There are hopes in the morning and prayers at night 

For many a rover. 

There are tears unwept and songs unsung, 

And human anguish keen. 
And hopes and fears and smiles and tears, 

But the blessings fall between! 




^ 

*, 




tfcA-t.^ 



MEMORIALS. 



MEMORIALS. 



JONATHAN W. GORDON. 

BY MARY E. CARDWILL. 

" We deem you are not dead, but high, 
In grander realms and brighter climes, 
Supremely live ; ye could not die 
In giving glory to all times, 

Till glory's light 
Our life illumines, our love sublimes, 
And ends our night. 

This beautiful tribute to his fallen comrades, giYen one memo- 
rial day, fitly echoes the feelings of those who loved its author — 
Jonathan W. Gordon. 

Major Gordon was a man of such versatile talents, which 
brought him success in so many different fields of labor, that it will 
be impossible here to do more than suggest the fulness of a life in 
which literary work necessarily bore so small a part. 

Jonathan W. Gordon was born in Washington County, Penn- 
sylvania, August 13, 1820. His father was of Scotch-Irish lineage, 
and his mother was a Virginian by birth and ancestry, facts of hered- 
ity which seem easily to account for the marked and almost anti- 
thetic qualities of his character — a readiness of wit and brilliancy 
of speech united to a sturdy honesty and keen love of truth, and 
an enthusiastic and quickly aroused sympathy joined to a stately 
courtesy and polished dignity of word and action. 

In 1835 ^^ removed with his parents to Ripley Co., Indiana, 
where, after acquiring a common school education, he studied law, 
and was admitted to the bar in 1844. His success in this profession 
seemed already assured, when in 1846 he entered the Mexican war 
as a private soldier, in the army of General Zachary Taylor. There 
he soon lost his health, contracting, it was thought, that fatal disease 
consumption, and was sent home to die. He grew better, however, 
but was unable to resume the practice of his profession. He then 
turned his attention to medicine, and was graduated from the medi- 
cal department of Asbury University. He followed his new pro- 
fession two years, when his health being completely restored, he 



204 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

returned to the practice of law. He removed to Indianapolis in 
1852, where, in addition to the duties of his profession, he engaged 
in newspaper work as a reporter for the daily "Journal," and as 
editor of the "Temperance Chart." 

In 1853 he entered actively into politics as a candidate for the 
office of Reporter for the Supreme Court. In 1854 he was elected 
Prosecuting Attorney for Marion County. He served two terms, 
1 856-1 860, in the State Legislature, and during the second term 
he was Speaker of the House. 

Among the first volunteers of the Civil War, he entered as a 
private the Ninth Indiana Regiment under General Milroy. He 
rapidly earned promotion, and for gallant services in the West 
Virginia campaign, he was appointed, June 8, 1861, Major of the 
Eleventh Regular Infantry. March 4, 1864, he resigned his position 
in the army, and returned to Indianapolis to the practice of his 
profession* 

For more than twenty years Major Gordon continued a suc- 
cessful career in law and politics, becoming eminent as a criminal 
lawyer, and as an eloquent and effective political speaker. 

Major Gordon was twice married : in early life to Miss Cath- 
erine J. Overturf, who died a short time before the war; in 1862 
to Miss Julia L. Dumont, daughter of Gen. E. Dumont, and grand- 
daughter of Julia L. Dumont, one of the best known of the pioneer 
Western authors and educators. 

Major Gordon died in the spring of 1887. 

" He needs no bronze to mark or trace 
The portals of his resting place, 
Nor chiseled Parian stone. 
* * * 

" I would I had the power to write 
Over his grave in letters of light 
His viewless spirit's last request — 
'Ye living men, 'tis best.' 
To help your hapless fellow men 
With kindly word and kindly deed 
■*.■ * * -x- 

With mercy's tongue and mercy's pen 
-)f -X- * 

Truthfully and tenderly. 
And if their woes be upas fruit 
Self-plucked from Sin's dark-flowering tree 
Whose tastes their mortal crimes commute, 



JONATHAN W. GORDCW. 205 

With death's grim drop, drop all dispute 
Of creeds that warring creeds refute ; 
For God doth see, 

Evolving light eternally, 
Not as men see." — S. S. Harding. 

A i)oet friend of Major Gordon lately said of him: "Like 
many another brilliant man, he will be remembered not for the 
things upon which he lavished the toils of a life-time, but for the 
few brief and fragmentary creations of his genius. Many of his 
little poems exhibit a breadth of sympathy and tenderness, and are 
clothed in such simple and beautiful forms of expression, that the 
reader feels himself to be in the presence of a true poet, and rec- 
ognizes the soul of inspiration in his song." 

Major Gordon early manifested literary taste and j)oetic talent. 
When a boy his fondness for Paradise Lost, and his good verbal 
memory, led him to learn several works of the great epic so thor- 
oughly that he could repeat them without hesitancy. He was also 
so familiar with the style of the poem, that on a wager with a young 
friend, he wrote in the same style and measure on the inspiration 
of the moment the following 

APOSTROPHE TO MILTON. 

Bird of my soul, thy hallowed song sublime 
Uplifts my feebler strain, and rises high, 
The vast variety and depth of thought 
That flow commingled in thy matchless verse, 
Anew and deep I drink — drink from the fount 
Prepared of God, rich to the mental taste, 
But tasted not before I drank with thee, 
O bard of deathless fame ! Now by thy wing 
* Directed, I, through climes unknown am borne, 

And guided to the spring whence song bursts forth ; 

Thence let me drink, to taste and drink not deep, 

O powers immortal may I ever scorn, 

Still choosing rather to be nought than naught , 

Inferior to the bard whose genius vast 

And venturous as vast, of chaos, death. 

And night with voice untrembling sang. 

A little poem published thirty-five years ago in the "Knicker- 
bocker Magazine," illustrates by its music, its imaginative beauty. 



2o6 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

tenderness, and pathos, the peciiHar characteristics of Major Gor- 
don's poetic style. It reads : 

The star loved the sea, and the sea loved the star : 

But in vain, for they still were apart ; 
And the sea ever sighed to his mistress afar, 

And sobbed in his sorrow and anguish of heart. 

But the star, with a smile in her bright, flashing eye. 

Looked down through night's shadows afar, 
And saw what no mistress e'er saw with a sigh. 

In the heart of the sea the bright face of a star. 

And she knew that her throne was the heart of the sea. 
And was happy to know that she reigned there alone ; 
' But the sea was not happy — Oh, how could he be ? 
Since naught but her shadow e'er came to his throne. 

So the sea could not go to the queen of his heart, 

And the star could not stoop from above ; 
Their love was in vain ; for they still were apart, 

And apart, could but dream of the rapture of love. 

It has been well said of Major Gordon that "he was one of 
those rare souls it is always a joy to meet." Wherever he went he 
took with him an atmosphere of sunshine and hope. Yet while he 
was able to add so much brightness to the lives of others, a certain 
introspective sadness, due to haunting premonitions of rapidly ap- 
proaching death, robbed his last years of some of the personal fruits 
of his joyous nature. 

His last poem, written a few weeks before his death, shows that 
his thoughts were then dwelling earnestly upon the scenes beyond 

"THE OPEN GATE." 

(I offer this waif of a wasted life to my friend, Major Maurice Thomp- 
son. If it were good or better, or even the best, I would proudly give, as I 
now humbly offer it. J. W. G.) 



I stand far down upon a shaded slope, 

And near the valley of a silent river, 
Whose tideless waters darkling, stagnant mope 
Through climes beyond the flight of earthward hope, 

Forever, and forever. 



JONATHAN W. GORDON. 207 



No sail is seen upon the sullen stream, — 

No breath of air to make it crisp or quiver,— 
Nor sun, nor star, to send the faintest gleam 
To cheer its gloom ; but as the styx we deem, 
It creeps through night forever. 



An open gate invites my bleeding feet, 

And all life's forces whisper : " We are weary 
Pass on and out ; thou canst no more repeat 
The golden dreams of youth ; and rest is sweet, 
And darkness is not dreary. 



Pass on and out ; the way is plain and straight. 

And countless millions have gone out before thee 
What shouldst thou fear since men of ev'ry state. 
And clime, and time have found the open gate, 
The gate of death, or glory ? 



Then fearless pass down to the silent shore. 

And look not back with aught like vain regretting 
The sunny days of life for thee are o'er. 
And thy dark eyes shall hail the light no more : 
Thy final sun is setting." 



They cease ; and silent through the gate I glide, 

And down the shore into the dismal river. 
That doth the lands of death and life divide 
To find, I trust, upon the farther side 
Life, light, and love forever. 



2o8 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

MYLA CHARLES, 

who passed to the "summer land" May 9, 1889, while yet the 
spring of life shone upon her sunny face, was the daughter of Emily 
Thornton Charles, of Washington, D. C, the poet, and author of 
" Lyrical Poems," and member of the Western Association of 
Writers. 

Miss Myla's work was ended at the early age of twenty-four 
years, but not till she had woven into it the promise of poetic and 
literary talent. 

One night when suffering from insomnia, she gave expression 
to her feelings in an 

"INVOCATION TO THE GOD OF SLEEP!" 

Thou gracious God of everlasting sleep, 

I pray thee, touch my eyelids, let them close 

Forever over eyes too tired to weep, 

Too sad with sorrow e'er to gain repose ! 

Her last record of personal events evidenced her beautiful 
thoughts, and in letters to those most dear she seemed to say : 

' ' Our love * * * 

By death its links can not be riven ; 
Thou'lt love me in that happy Heaven 
Where none are dead." 

But it is the mother whose life is worn threadbare with its 
sorrow, whose sobs are unheard, save by Him who never fails to 
note the sound of a teardrop, or the vibrate of a sigh, and to Him 
in prayerful moan she says : 

"MY PRECIOUS ONE," 

Beyond the scenes of suffering and wailing. 

Beyond earth's care and strife, 
She found the source of happiness unfailing 

In realms of lasting life. 
Aye, in the realms of peace and joy eternal. 

Her winged, lovely soul. 
Faith-purified, abides in love supernal, 

Forever beautiful. 

L. M. W. 



MARY LOUISA CHITWOOD. 209 



MARY LOUISA CHITWOOD. 



BY BENJ. S. PARKER. 

In this far-away time to write of Mary Louisa Chitwood is like 
recalling some sweetly beautiful dream of childhood that faded ere 
it had rounded to the perfect denouement. She was but twenty- 
three years old when she died, and that was more than thirty years 
ago. The great war, and most of the great modern discoveries lie 
within the period that has elapsed since the flowers she loved so 
well began to bloom above her sleeping dust. The West had 
produced great poets before she was born. She lived in the age 
of great poets. Tennyson and Longfellow were at their best then. 
Bryant and Prentice, Whittier and Otway Curry, Coates Kinney 
and Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Carey sisters and Mrs. Bolton, 
and W. D. Gallagher were all singing then, and Lowell was plum- 
ing his wings for his greatest sunward flights. But there was a 
large constituency in Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky, who had heard 
but little, and, perhaps, given less heed to the great singers, whom 
the beautiful young songstress of the country hamlet charmed and 
captured by the simple, earnest sweetness of her poetry. 

You can find men and women to-day here and there over the 
country, gray headed and ripe in years and experience, who will 
tell you that the first genuine inspiration to enlarged thought, 
nobility, and beauty of life that ever came into their souls, was born 
of the simple songs of the enthusiastic country girl, Mary Louisa 
Chitwood. Why this special influence, you ask ? The question is 
not difficult to answer. She began to sing at a time when the people 
of the then new States were getting far enough away from the 
pioneer period to have a little leisure, and when general education 
was sufficiently advanced to cause many young persons in the best 
communities to turn their leisure to good account. To that class 
of young people Miss Chitwood's poetry came like draughts from 
a pure fountain. Her poems were written for them and to them, 
not above their heads. They were printed and praised in their 
home i^apers, read in the family circles by the evening lamps, recited 
at school exhibitions, and loved and enjoyed by all. They came 
as direct appeals to the hearts of the young — with something too 
much of sadness, perhaps, but youth loves that sadness which is 
nature's answer to its own abounding life and gladness. As we 
grow older grief besets us so on every hand that we turn from it 
and seek thai which is full of sunshine and cheer, and tluis "our 



2IO WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

little lives are kept in equipoise." If the young are indebted to 
the old for wisdom and opportunity, how much more are the old 
indebted to the young for the sweetness, the impulse, the whole- 
hearted joyousness that makes life tolerable. 

Miss Chitwood's singing was simple, natural, direct. It was 
the poetry of childhood and early youth, and as such must be judged 
by those who read it to-day. As indicating the hold which her life 
and thought exercised upon those within its circle, I remember 
meeting Alf. Burnet, the well-known poet and actor, who was so 
long such a favorite in the West, one day at a hotel where he was 
stopping. Miss Chitwood had been in her grave for twenty-five 
years, and Burnet was well along in the afternoon of life. At the 
mention of Miss Chitwood's name his eyes filled with tears, and 
opening his trunk, he took from it a package of her old letters that 
he had carried with him in his wanderings, across seas, and wher- 
ever his lot had been cast. George D. Prentice was her friend 
and literary counsellor. Not one of the many Western literary 
journals and magazines that sprang up from 1850 to 1856, and led 
varying careers, which were cut short by the approaching storm of 
civil war, considered its list of contributors complete without the 
name of M. Louisa Chitwood. She herself engaged in publication, 
and "The Ladies' Temperance Wreath" was popular, and on the 
road to success when the want of an appreciative partner drove 
the poor girl almost to despair, and led to the downfall of the en- 
terprise. Franklin County, Indiana, which has become so famous 
for the number of gifted men and women born amongst its romantic 
hills and lovely valleys, that whenever an Indianian attains to promi- 
nence, the question is at once propounded, "Was he born in or 
near Brookville?" was her birth place. It was at the little village 
of Mt. Healthy that she lived and sang her brief, sweet life away. 
Like those other Franklin County poets, Forcythe Willson and his 
gifted wife Elizabeth Conwell, who lie buried in the village church- 
yard at Laurel, her years were soon told. Her own fate seems to 
have been beautifully foreshadowed in her melodious song of Isabel 
Lee. How many of the bright galaxy of Western authors, of whom 
she was one, and with whom she was ever a favorite, have passed 
away. — George D. Prentice, Mrs. Jane M. Mead, Alice and Phoebe 
Carey, Jonathan W. Gordon, Howard Durham, Alf. Burnet, Miss 
M. E. Wilson, and a score of others who knew and loved her, and 
sang for the same audiences, have joined her on the hills of eternity. 
And yet after more than thirty years her name and her influence 
still live, and still the questions which Coates Kinney asked above 
her new made grave are repeated by many who remember how she 
inspired them with enlarged hope and beautiful thoughts : 



HETTY ATHON MORRISON. 211 

"What, dead ? 

The soul of love, and the lips of song, 
To the burial bed 

And the grave belong ? " 
•s * -;<• * * 

' ' Why dead ? 

Truth never dies and love lives long. 
And the twain were wed 
In her life of song ! " 

Those who love poetry will never cease to delight in those 
songs of the gifted child, who, like Pope, 

" Lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." 

Their memory of Mary Louisa Chitwood will never die. While 
a mere child she was weaving, with poetic fancy, the common inci- 
dents of life into the harmony of numbers, and everything around 
her gave material to her thought, which found expression in gems 
of verse : 

"If in one poor, bleeding bosom, 
I a woe-swept chord have stilled. 
If a dark and restless spirit 

I with hope of heaven have filled; 
If I've made for life's hard battle 

One faint heart grow brave and strong, 
Then, my God, I thank thee, bless thee. 
For the precious gift of song ! " 

Her poems were collected and printed in a neat volume, under 
the editorial direction of George D. Prentice, shortly after her 
death, which through successive editions has been kept before the 
public ever since. This work of love has been done by her aged 
mother, Mrs. Mary A. Tucker, of Greensburg, Indiana. 



TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. HETTY ATHON MORRISON. 



r.V W. I>. NF.EDHAM. 



Henrietta Wilson Athon was born in Charlestown, Clark County, 
Indiana, May 4, 1837, and was a daughter of Dr. James S. and 
Rebecca Athon. At an early age she evidenced an aptitude for 
literary pursuits, and began the development of her rare and beau- 
tiful talents, under the noms de plume of " Kitty Lee" and " Mary 



212 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Lynn," her sweet and symmetrical style of verse making her a 
favorite with the public and a congenial spirit in literary circles. 

Her father having been elected Supeiuntendent of the Indiana 
Insane Hospital, she removed to the city of Indianapolis in the 
spring of 1853, where she attended the McLean Female Seminary 
for two or three years, and was afterward a student of the Maple- 
wood Institute, at Pittsfield, Mass., where she graduated with high 
honors. During her college career she continued her literary 
work, and her essays and poems then, as at all times, were remark- 
able for their depth of thought, purity of expression, and delicate 
imagery. 

She was united in marriage to James B. Morrison, December 
23, 1858, in Indianapolis. She was the mother of three sons, 
Frank A., Lynn A., and Walter Morrison, the last dying in infancy. 

She published a book called "Summer in the Kitchen," the 
title of which was an unfortunate selection, as many erroneously 
connected it with the idea of a cook book. Notwithstanding this, 
the book is one of the most classical bits of Indiana literature, and 
is highly appreciated by those who have read it. 

In her home life she was somewhat reticent, devoting much of 
her time to literary work She allowed the greatest freedom of 
thought to members of her family, and claimed the same for her- 
self. She was a humanitarian in the sweet sense of the term, and 
during the latter portion of her life, regularly attended the Unita- 
rian Church ; but she chose, at all times, her own rather than any 
orthodox interpretation of Scripture. She believed that to do good 
should be the highest purpose of life, and her sympathies were 
always with the neglected and oppressed. She ever extended a 
willing hand to those who heeded help, and often denied herself 
the comforts and luxuries of life that she might alleviate the suffer- 
ings of the distressed and needy. 

She died March 4, 1885, after a lingering illness. 

Oh, gentle friends, who wonder why 
The sinless one should droop and die, 

And seek the better way; 
^ She only sleeps profoundly deep, 

And love shall hold and sweetly keep 

Our friend of yesterday. 

She slumbers, but she is not dead, 
Oh, leave that harsh word half unsaid. 

And do not think of death ! 
She lives — and can not, will not die — 
Not far away and by and by, 

Not as a transient breath. 



ELI. A MATHERS NAVE. 213 

Nor as a flower that blooms by chance. 
And, circumscribed by circumstance 

In blooming, dies in vain — 
But here and now she loves and lives 
In well-remembered words, and gives 

Her presence back again. 

In solemn hush, that seems the best, 
She comes from out the dream of rest 

Beyond the shining sun ; 
And mingles with her gentle ways 
The soft caress of stainless days. 

And lives in deeds well done. 

Companion of the pure in heart ! 
Impassioned soul ! Sweet counterpart 

Of one redeemed and free ! 
No pen can trace nor sad song tell 
The sadness of our long farewell — 

Our last farewell to thee. 



ELLA MATHERS NAVE. 

IN MEMORIAM. 

As a sunny day sometimes closes with a sudden gloom of cloud, 
so the last "form" of the "Souvenir" must tell of hearts and lives 
agrieved for one whose name is identified with the Western Asso- 
ciation of Writers, and whose presence added to the interest and 
pleasure of its Conventions. It is hard to realize that the bright 
woman, sunny-hearted comrade, and gracious friend, has gone away 
and will not return. By this the world has had a loss, the State is 
bereft of one of its gifted daughters, the Church and community 
feel the absence of her helpful influence, her friends and comrades 
miss the genial presence, and the loved and loving home-folk, for 
whom she lived and labored, who knew how self-sacrificing, heroic, 
patient, sunny-lived she was, are broken-hearted. But how sweet 
her own tenderly expressed thought comes to the grieving aged 
mother, and broken home circle now : 

"From that mother, wipe those tears. 
Sweetly, gently calm those fears ; 
Tell them, Jesus, meek and mild, 
Loves, protects the orphan child." 



214 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Ella Mathers Nave had Hved two score of years, but they had 
left scarce an impress upon the bright face. Life had held for her 
its sadnesses and its pleasures. In every vicissitude she was brave 
and uncomplaining, shielding those she loved from the shadow of 
sorrows and sharing with them the sunshine of every blessing. 

As a writer she was polished, terse, grotesque, humorous, 
pathetic, and always entertaining. It can fittingly be said of her, 
as she said of the late Professor John A. Steele : 

"All that remains is a name and memory; a memory of good work 
and words which will live on and on." 

Again comes the influence of Ella Nave's own words : 

"Where are their spirits who were with us but yesterday — a power 
among us, and are gone to-day? Where is the land of souls? How wide 
and how deep is the dark stream which divides us from the kingdom of the 
dead? Each soul crosses it in silence, and neither dip of oar nor flutter of 
angel's wing comes back to us. Again and again we ask ourselves these 
questions, and can only find comfort in the knowledge that God is over all." 

Ella Nave passed away January 9, 1890, after a painful illness 
of nearly two months.' She was the daughter of Joseph Mathers 
and Jennie A. Williams-Mathers, and a native of Indiana. She 
was the wife of Christian Addison Nave, who died several years 
ago. She was a member of the Fourth Presbyterian Church of 
Indianapolis, and active in the Sabbath School, and a member of 
the Christian Endeavor Society. She was a musician of fine attain- 
ment, and was the Principal of the Musical Department of the 
Danville (Indiana) Normal College for nearly ten years. At her 
death she was occupying a responsible position in the Indiana State 
Library, to which she had been appointed by the State Board. She 
was a regular contributor to leading newspapers and magazines of 
the East and middle West, and was writing a historical novel, 
founded upon early scenes and incidents in Indiana life, for which- 
she had collected a large amount of material. She was a member 
of the Executive Committee of the Western Association of Writers, 
and attended its last session in November. 

Her work is done. The busy hands and tireless feet are still. 
The spirit that shone from the soulful eyes has gone. With her 
own words we leave her 

"AT REST." 

" A little while only of sadness and tears, 
A little while only, at best a few years 
Of sunshine and shadow, and we will pass o'er 
And meet ne'er to part on the echoless shore." 

L. MAY WHEELER. 
Indianapolis, Indiana, yaniiary, i8go. 



POETS' CORNER. 





OUlCL 



CTK^ 



POETS^ COEKER. 



THE WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

BY SARAH T. BOI.TON. 

What are they doing, these friends of ours? 
Living in Fancy's halcyon bowers — ^ 
Gathering pebbles or culling flowers, 

On seaside sand or meadow ? 
Do they remember that time flies fast ? 
That their summer days will soon be past — 
That winter has many a bitter blast, 

And many a gruesome shadow ? 

The prophets of God are great but few ; 
There is much for the gifted and good to do — 
Let each for himself be brave and true. 

While Clotha still is spinning. 
Steadily, cautiously, he must climb, 
Training his steps to the march of Time, 
Who would write his name on heights sublime- 

The goal is worth the winning ! 



THE MOTHER OF HIS CHILD. 

BY E. S. L. THOMP.SON. 

O, Other women might be queenly fair. 
With radiant eyes and shining waves of hair, 
Yet Earth for him held but one Paradise, 
A wee, wee cot, where ever to his eyes 
Show'd a Madonna plain, but strangely sweet, 
With baby boy there playing at her feet ! 

He was a King and this his Royal throne ; 

The crown was Love, the Kingdom was his home, 

A monarch more than other monarchs great, 

With the fee simple of his large estate ! 

He clasped her to his heart ! the world might frown, 

He still would smile from heights of Heaven down ! 



WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 
CREMATION. 

BY ELLA M. NAVE. 

On the back porch with her knitting 

Was Jemima Jenkins sitting, 

Sadly musing, slowly knitting, 

Mate of sock knit day before. 

Sat Jemima Jenkins, pondering 

O'er the news of robbers plundering 
^ New made graves, and fell to wondering 
What she'd do with Theodore, 
Her poor husband, Theodore, 

Who upon his bed was lying. 
Sick nigh unto death was lying. 
' ' Soon, " she said, ' ' he will be dying. 
Soon be gone forever more. 
Though, alas ! we were mismated. 
Quarreled some — still, 'tis not fated. 
That those students — shallow-pated 

Apes — shall carve poor Theodore, 
Cut and slash poor Theodore. 

"And, as I before have stated, 

I'll have all to me related 

Saved from ghoulish fiends — cremated — 
Keep their ashes evermore. 

Ne'er shall surgeon's knife deface thee. 

On my mantelpiece I'll place thee, 

In a marble urn encase thee. 

When thou'rt gone, my Theodore, 
Keep thee, then, forevermore.'" 

So, when Theodore departed 

From this life, the broken-hearted 

Widow had his body carted 

Straightway from her cottage door 

To a crematory furnace. 
"Yes, "'she said, "'tis best to burn us. 

When we're dead, and those who mourn us 
Then can keep us evermore" — 
These words spake she, o'er and o'er. 



POKTS' CORNER. 219 

Ere three months had rolled around her, 
In the same old place we found her, 
At the very same work found her, 

Found her knitting as before. 
As she sat there, idly dreaming. 
Suddenly she heard a screaming. 
Heard her youngest hopeful screaming, 
"Pap is spilled upon the floor ! 

Johnny spilled him on the floor ! " 

To her feet in wild fright springing. 
On the floor her knitting flinging, 
Heard those dreadful words still ringing. 

Straightway stood she in the door. 
Saw she Johnny, standing, crying. 
Saw the pure white ashes flying. 
Saw the urn in pieces lying. 

Broken on the parlor floor. 

Scattered — lost — forevermore 

" Ah ! " she said, "it beats the nation 
How some fools will preach cremation. 
And burn up a near relation, 

Just to scatter on the floor. 
Would I'd kept thee never — never ! 
Here's my carpet spoiled forever. 
In the flesh thou wast contrary, ever ; 
It's just like you, Theodore, 
Like your tricks in days of yore. 

" I no longer wish to keep thee. 
From my carpet now I sweep thee — 
With the same old broom I sweep thee, 

Broom froni which thou'st fled before." 
With the soft wind round her sighing. 
And the children round her crying. 
Sent she the white ashes flying, 

Swept them forth forevermore. 

Ah — alas ! poor Theodore ! 



WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 
AN ARTICLE OF FAITH. 

BY MRS. J. V. H. KOONS. 

I know not anything. I only think, 

Believe, hope, pray all things are for the best. 

While from life's fount of love and joy I drink, 

I dream that we shall always, somewhere, still be blest. 

When sorrow's bitter waters press my lips. 

And from my breaking heart rend some sweet hope. 

As ocean wrecks and buries freighted ships 

In deep, dark graves that never more may ope, 

I drain the cup fate fills and feel that night 

Essential is as day. I close my eyes 
And wait till on the soul's prophetic sight 

Shall dawn for me some healing, sweet surprise. 

And this is all that I can do. What more 

Doth prayer of priest avail ? I hold this fast : 

The Power that launched my boat hath marked the shore 
Where it shall anchored rest, all safe at last. 



FOUNTAINS OF SONG. 

BY RICH.^RD LEW. DAWSON. 

Would you then sing 
With such rare music that the world shall pause 
And lift you to a throne of warm applause ; 

And would you bring 
The mind of man to cherish higher things. 
And know the soothing touch of beauty's wings ? 

In joy depart 
Beyond the town and breathe the pure, crisp air, 
And note the splendor which the heavens wear ; 

Inspire your heart 
With all the peace and charm of Nature's green, 
Nor let one dart of sorrow shoot between. 



POETS CORNER. 

But if you think 
That life is tasteless, colorless, and bare. 
Go down and drink of misery and care. 

And on the brink 
Of agony look over into hell. 
And all the woes of life and death foretell. 

No need to soar 
Into the dark and deep confines of space. 
But only read your friend's or neighbor's face, 

An open door 
That shows fantastic shapes of sun or storm, 
Music or wailing, colors cold or warm. 

Then fondly turn 
And tune the sweet and mellow harp of home. 
Above your dear ones build the fancy's dome, 

In words that burn ; 
Light up the ages with your country's praise, 
And with her glory set the world ablaze. 

Expand your soul 
Within the boundless, odorous sea of love. 
And as his sweet and mighty waves above 

Caressing roll, 
Seek no escape, but hear the strain he sings. 
Till your song with its richest meaning rings. 

For love is oil ! 
And when his gleaming tide shall overwhelm 
And draw you into his enchanted realm. 

On you shall fall 
The keen prophetic vision, and a sign 
That men shall know, and call your gift divine ! 



THE PRESENT. 

BY MAMIE S. PADEN. 



The Past : it is the rustling, scentless dust 
Of withered roses. Cheat not thy fond heart, 
Its fragrant fairness to new life will start 

No more. Regret but softly if thou must. 



WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

The Future : 'tis a folded bud. Wait thou 
In patience wise. No little curled leaf 
Will be for thy hot, eager hands more brief 

In time of growth. But thou canst spoil it now. 

The Present : 'tis thy rose of life, full-blown. 

Thy dust is dear ; thy buds will bloom in time ; 

Pluck, and breathe deep life's fragrance in its prime 
Ere thou, too, wither into the unknown. 



ON GROWING OLD. 

BY BENJ. S. PARKER. 

O, sing to me the gladness 
Of Spring's rejoicing song, 

Or Love's delightful measures 
When Summer days were long ! 

The ebb-tide moves not slowly, 
Though still our souls delay, 

To catch the latest sunshine 
Of youth's receding day. 

We shrink from yonder darkness 
And waste of pathless main, 

And list each shore-line murmur 
Of far-off youth's refrain. 

In some far, sheltered harbor. 
When o'er the heavenly wall, 

On eyes grown tired with longing 
A sweeter light shall fall, 

Shall not the storm-tossed vessel 
Cast anchor safe at last, 

And there the weary spirit 
Renew its happy past ? 

O ! if for one brief moment 
That joy to me be given, 

' Twill sweeten ever after 

The sweetest joys of heaven. 



POETS CORNER. 223 

BY STILL WATERS. 

15Y MINNETTA T. TAYLOR. 

The morn is the glory of God, 

And the evening is His peace ; 
And never the hills where the angels have trod 

In His praises falter or cease. 

The rivers murmur His name, 

And the winds remember His voice ; 
And the myriad stars with their tongues of flame, 

Are chanting rejoice ! rejoice ! 

Sun where the rivers are curled, 

Or stars where the forests are dim ; 
But the thought of God is the light of the world. 

And my heart adoreth Him. 

And still in the morning's glow. 

Or the evening's majestic peace, 
On the hills where the angels come and go, 

The song and the glory increase. 



EMPTY YEARS. 

HY MARIE LOUISE ANDREWS. 

The cradle before me is empty, 

Closed forever my baby's blue eyes, 

Cold the hands of my dimpled darling, 
Waits my treasure in Paradise, 

And bright are his visions of glory, I ween ; 

But what shall I do with the pitiless years, 
The years that lie empty between ? 

I know that my darling is happy 
In the smile of the Father who gave ; 

But the sweet cherished hopes for his manhood 
Are lost in the gloom of his grave. 

O, bright are his visions of heaven, I ween. 

But what shall I do with the sorrowful years. 
The years that lie empty between ? 



2 24 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

THE CATBIRD. 

A CAPRICCIO. 
BY VV. H. VENABLE. 

Nightingale I never heard, 
Nor the skylark, poet's bird. 
But there is an aether winger 
So surpasses any singer 
(Though unknown to lyric fame) 
That at morning, or at nooning, 
When I hear his pipe a tuning, 
Down I fling Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, 
Shakespeare, too — for what are bards worth, 
When my catbird — that's his name — 
Begins a concert free 
To entertain himself and me ? 
Time, cantante ! 
Scherzo ! Andante ! 
Piano, pianissimo ! 
Presto, prestissimo ! 

Hark ! Are there nine birds, or ninety and nine ? 
And now a miraculous gurgling gushes 
Like nectar from Hebe's Olympian bottle, 
The laughter of tune from a rapturous throttle ! 
Such melody must be a hermit thrush's. 
But that other caroler, nearer. 
Outrivaling rivalry with clearer 
Sweetness, incredibly fine ! 
Is it oriole, redbird, or bluebird, 
Or some strange, un-Audoboned new bird ! 
All one, sir, both this bird and that bird. 
The whole flight are all the same catbird ! 
The whole visible and invisible choir you see 
On that twig of that green tree. 
■^ Flitting feathery Blondel ! 

Listen to his rondel ! 
To his lay romantical, 
To his sacred canticle. 
Hear him lilting. 
See him tilting 

His saucy head and tail, and fluttering 
While uttering 



poets' corner. 225 

All the difficult operas under the sun. 

Just for fun ; 

Or in tipsy revelry, 

Or at low deviltry, 

Or, disdaining his divine gift and art, 

Like an inimitable poet 

Who captivates the world's heart 

And don't know it. 

Hear him lilt ! 

See him tilt ! 

Then suddenly he stops. 

Peers about, flirts, hops. 

As if looking where he might gather up 

The wasted ecstacy just spilt 

From the quivering cup 

Of his bliss overrun. 

Then, as in mockery of all 

The tuneful spells that ere did fall 

From vocal pipe, or evermore shall rise, 

He snarls, and miaws, and flies. 



IF I HAD KNOWN. 

BY M.\RGRET HOLMES. 

If I had known, dear one, upon that day, 
How you in anguish moaned the hours away, 
I could not then have decked my burnished hair. 
Nor with light converse made the moments fare 
So fleetly on, with song and laughter gay. 

Was never storm that could my footsteps stay ; 
No periled path that I would not essay 
To reach and take you in my tenderest care 
If I had known. 

But no least whisper did the truth betray. 
Nor pallid Fancy set in dim array 
The pangs you suflfered. Nothing said, "Beware, 
Death draws so near he chills the sunny air ! " 
The bluest sky had turned to ashen gray 
If I had known. 



2 26 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

MY VINTAGE. 

BY MRS. D. M. JORDAN. 

I watched the vines that with their clinging tendrils 

Climbed higher on my lattice day by day, 
And in the May time saw the dainty blossoms, 

Where bird and bee oft tarried on their way. 
And when I saw the green and tender clusters 

That sunned themselves upon the graceful vine, 
With something of a miser's greed I counted 

Upon the purple fruit and ruby wine. 

Oh, golden days of rare and radiant beauty, 

When sunshine made a glory in the air. 
And every breeze was sweet with summer roses. 

And beauty blossomed round me everywhere, 
I did not dream that thro' the press of anguish 

My heart should learn its ideals to resign. 
Even as the purple grapes are crushed and broken 

Before they yield the richness of the wine. 

I sit to-day amid the faded verdure, 

The harvest garnered and the vintage pressed, 
The autumn fields are sharp with bristling stubble. 

The forest in its sober russet dressed. 
My feet are tired, and my hands are weary, 

The pride and glory of my day is spent. 
The purple fruit and wine on which I counted, 

I drink with tears, a solemn sacrament. 



THE LILY AND THE ZEPHYR. 

BY JULIA C. ALDRICH. 

A full June moon was softly beaming 

Through a floating veil of white. 
And the asphodels were breathing 

Perfumed whispers to the Night, 
When the silver rays, in silence 

Stealing thro' the swaying trees, 
Saw a modest Lily turning 

To a roving, balmy breeze — 



poets' corner. 227 

Heard the Zephyr softly whisper, 
" Ah ! my Lily, charming sweet. 
Sure, the god of love hath led us 

In this bowery place to meet ; 
Richest odors I will bring thee 

From the islands of the sea, 
For your beauty hath enchained me ; 

Will you give your heart to me ?" 

With a touch, exquisite, subtile. 

Then he turned to his, her face. 
And her blush of deeper crimson 

Seemed to passion, added grace. 
' I have sought you — will you trust me ? 

Constant as the stars I'll be ; 
In the sacred stillness answer — 

Will you give your love to me ? " 

Frail the flower, tranced, enraptured. 

By the lover's soft caress. 
To his tender wooing answered. 

With impulsive rashness, "Yes" 
Then, exultant, Zephyr gloried 

In the treasure he had won. 
Deftly stole her sparkling jewels. 

Sharing with the rising sun. 

Brushed the spangles from her tresses 

With his playful finger-tips. 
Bolder grew with his caresses. 

Gathering sweetness from her lips ; 
Robbed her beauty of the freshness 

That was hers at early morn. 
Left her 'neath the sun of noonday, 
Burning like the gaze of scorn. 

Drooping, as in heat of censure. 

Evening found her in the dust. 
Lifted her with tearful pity 

From the path of trampled trust ; 
But the tender flush of loving 

From her face was blanched and gone ; 
Only beauty born of trial. 

Pale, sad beauty, met the dawn. 



228 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

Now for her the moon is shining, 

With a calm and holy light, 
Dew-like gems of rarest beauty 

Sparkle on her brow at night ; 
With her white face turned toward heaven, 

In her vestal robe she stands. 
As a priestess at an altar, 

Lifting consecrated hands. 

Chastest forms of beauty round her, 
Stars that gem the vaulted blue. 

All unite to voice the warning, 

" Be thine own self, pure and true ! " 

Trust for strength the black-browed storm-cloud. 
With its scathing lightning blaze. 

Rather than the Zephyr's whisper, 
' Neath the moon's enchanting gaze. 



BROKEN REVERIE. 



BY W. W. PFRIMMER, 



Sometimes while sitting here alone, half dreaming. 
When free from toiling through the live-long day. 

There come to me from changeful embers gleaming. 
Familiar faces long since passed away. 

There come to me the melodies of childhood, « 
Like flute-notes wafted on the twilight air, 

Or bird song from the dingle in the wild wood, 
When deeper shades of evening gather there. 

And vagrant fancy, like some minstrel rover 

Wakes tuneful notes from mem'ry's golden keys. 

Until I catch the scent of blooming clover, 
And hear the low, sweet murmur of the bees. 

Until again in woodland haunts I ramble, 

With bare, brown feet, and heart untouched with care. 
Or gather tribute from each grape and bramble, 

As songful as the mock-bird singing there. 



poets' corner. 229 

Until, alas ! the feeble embers dying, 

The pleasing phantoms vanish from my sight ; 
And naught is heard save tearful, sad winds sighing. 

And in my thoughts creep shadows of the night. 

But while to-night, within those shadows sitting. 

Deep, melancholy gloom enshrouding me, 
There came a night-robed, blue-eyed angel flitting. 

And all unbidden perched upon my knee ' 

Her baby arms around my neck were stealing, 

Her silken curls across my face were drawn. 
When in my heart there came a restful feeling. 

And all the shadows from my thoughts were gone. 



LIFE EVERLASTING. 

BY M. SEARS BROOKS. 

By the roadside it grows, 

Lifts its white crown. 
Where the blushing wild rose 

Was trampled down. 

To-day I met my love 
Of long ago. 
Her hair was silvery white, and yet, the low 
Sweet voice that charmed me. 
In the olden days. 
Still spoke in softly modulated ways. 
Of books, and art — albeit the wrinkles lay 
Where once I watched the smiles 
And dimples play. 

My love, — and yet 't was not. 
How was it Time 
Had spared to eye and voice their gracious prime ' 
How laid his touch on cheek, 
On lip, and brow. 
Saying, thy friend is vanished, buried now, 
Yet never reached that inner, sacred shrine 
Save to enrich, adorn. 

And make divine ? 
Go, learn the secret. Changed we all must be. 
Life from within is immortality. 



230 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

LEAFLESS. 

BY L. MAY WHEELER. 

A murm'rous hum like the moan of the sea, 
A faint leaf-song from the frost-touched tree, 

I heard to-day. 
It went to my heart like a low, sweet word. 
And a mem'ry came on the sound I heard, 

Of Spring and May. 

'Twas the spell of a dream, of a dream so sweet, 
Came on the wind for the leaf to repeat 

To me to-day. 
But the leaves fell down from the trembling tree 
At the touch of the breeze and sunlight free — 

Lifeless for aye. 

The light and the love of the fresh young year 
Seem dying to-day, with the leaflings sear ; 

It is not so. 
For out of the love, and bloom, and the green 
In garners a perfect fruition is seen — 

God wills it so. 



"AFTERWHILES." 

(from riley's verse.) 

■" * " Where is the dawn 
With the dew across the lawn. 
Stroked with eager feet the far 
Way the hills and valleys are? 

* -X- * * -X- -X- 

' O, far glimmering worlds and wings, 

Mystic smiles and beckonings. 

Lead us, through the shadowy aisles. 

Out into the afterwhiles." 

•X- * * * .-and 

I heard, as I squinted my eyelids to, 

A kiss like the drip of a drop of dew. 



poets' corner. 231 

" And there was the little window — 
Twinkle, and drip, and drip — 
The rain above, and a mother's love, 
And God's companionship. 

' This is to-day ; and I have no thing 

To think of - nothing whatever to do. 
But to hear the throb of the pulse of a wing 
That wants to fly back to you. 

• Words will not say what I yearn to say, 
They will not walk as I want them to ; 
But they stumble and fall in the path of the way 
Of my telling my love for you. 

"There is ever a song somewhere, my dear, 

Be the skies above or dark or fair ; 
There is ever a song that our hearts may hear. 
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear. 

There is ever a song somewhere." 



O. JENNY LEE FROM TENNESSEE. 

BY CLARENCE A. BUSKIRK 

' O, Jenny Lee from Tennessee, 

Your eyes have pierced my heart, 
Your each eyebrow a Cupid's bow 
That sends a welcome dart. 

" O, Jenny Lee from Tennessee, 
Still more it makes me speak, 
So sweetly glows that tempting rose 
Now blooming on your cheek. 

" O, Jenny Lee from Tennessee, 
Your voice is soft and sweet ; 
Your hair is rolled in chains of gold 
That bind me to your feet. 

"O, Jenny Lee from Tennessee, 
Your smiles are like the morn — 
Let not your lips their light eclipse, 
To leave my heart forlorn ! " 



232 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

THE HAUNTED BATTLEFIELD. 

BY M. SWAFFORD, (BELLE BREMEK). 

All the place is haunted ; 

In the moon's pale beams 
Every wind-stirred thicket 

Full of spectres seems ; 
Here a bayonet glistens, 

There a sabre gleams. 

Sounds a ghostly bugle 
Far away, and then 

Comes a steady tramping, 
As of marching men, 

Up among the shadows 
Of the haunted glen. 

Yonder, down the valley, 
By the river pine, 

Where the ground was reddest 
With the human wine, 

Come the spectral columns 
Wheeling into line. 

See the ghostly gunners 
Gathering around. 

Where the broken caissons 
Moulder on the ground ; 

And again the cannon 

Thunders from yon mound. 

Now the storm of battle 
Sweeps across the vale 

Comes a heavy patter 
As of leaden hail. 

While the Southern pine trees 
Bend as in a gale. 

\yavers there no column, 
Infantry like rock, 

Stand with stern, set faces. 
To receive the shock 

Of the charging squadrons. 
Seeming death to mock. 



poets' corner. 233 

Rush the phantom horsemen 

Like the wind, nor heed 
Screaming shell and shrapnel, 

Neigh of dying steed. 
Prayer or imprecation, 

Shriek of spirits freed. 

But the charge is over ; 

All is still again ; 
Crimson dyes the grasses 

Like a bloody rain. 
Where the ghastly reapers 

Mowed that awful lane. 

Ever in that valley, 

At the close of day. 
Come the warring shadows — 

Shadows blue and gray — 
Gathering in the moonlight 

To the dreadful fray. 

Shadowy lines are forming, 

Marching to and fro ; 
Ghostly drums are beaten, 

Spectral bugles blow, 
Where was fought that battle 

In the long ago. 



TWO VIEWS. 

BY MARIE LOUISE ANDREWS. 



'The moments are sweet," she said, "all sweet; 
The earth is glad and the skies are blue. 
And I 've learned my lesson of love all through. 
While pansies and violets grew at my feet." 

'The moments are sad," she said, "all sad ; 
My heart is heavy, the heavens are gray. 
As I watch a reaper binding the hay ; — 
Ah, me ! were the skies and the earth ever glad ?' 



234 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

LOST. 

BV W. DE WITT WALLACE. 

I had a friend. Our souls clasped hands ; 
Our heart-strings, like two vines, about 
Each other twined till twain seemed one 
For time and for eternity. 

One stormy night, lo ! while I slept, 
I know not how, nor why, my friend 
Unloosed the cords, and faithless fled. 

Speak not of death, nor count that loss 
Which plucks from earth a flower to bloom 
In Heaven. 

He only sounds the depth 

Of woe, and drinks the gall of life 
Who mourns a living friend that's lost. 



CLOUDS. 

BY W. D. FOULKE. 



Yes, the smiling clouds are angels. 

Angels of the air ; 
On the path from earth to heaven, 

Peri, bright and fair. 
They are messengers of plenty, 

Raining happy harvests down ; 
Now they gild the skies of sunset. 

Now the hoary hills they crown. 
Forms fantastic, visions rare. 
Flit and hover ever in the air. 

Now they vaunt the pride of armies. 

Marching with the gale ; 
Now they breathe in rainy darkness, 

Sorrow's plaintive tale ; 
Now they come, the moon's attendants. 

Following the steps of love ; 
Now they speak in gloomy thunders. 

Direful wrath of gods above. 
Human passions, dark and fair, 
Pictured by the angels of the air. 



poets' cornef. 235 

Yonder is a cloudy palace, 

Just a minute old — 
Roof of pearl and walls of silver, 

Pillars bright with gold ; 
Now it is a mighty mountain. 

Towering tall and grim and high ; 
Now, like forms of shadowy dreamland, 

All go flitting, flitting by. 
Lights of joy and shades of care. 
Chasing one another through the air. 

Colors rich in cloudy beauty. 

To the earth are given. 
But the brightest hues are cherished. 

For the eye of heaven. 
Like those angels of the sunlight, 

Is the heart of one I love ; 
Dear she is to all around her. 

Dearer yet to One above. 
Sweet to us, yet passing fair, 
To thsft keen Eye that searcheth everywhere. 



ENTHUSIASM. 

BY CLARENCE A. BUSKIRK. 

Be careful that the meshes of your net 

Be small enough to catch the common fishes ; 

Else, vainly may you wade through cold and wet 

For the Leviathans that float in wishes : 

So Common Sense exclaims, and shrugs his shoulder, 

While usefully he sets our meats and dishes. 

He speaks us truth, but speaks not all the truth. 

Enthusiasm, broader-browed and bolder, 

Radiant with inextinguishable youth, 

Star-gazing, silver-voiced. Promethean, 

Still goes Leviathan fishing, with his nets 

So largely meshed he only hunger gets 

Mayhap his life through, fish as best he can. 

Yet the Leviathans which swim the seas. 

Who capture them when captured, if you please ? 



236 



WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 



JUNE. 



BY EVALEEN STEIN. 



High overhead, 
By Summer breezes sped, 
From every latest burgeoned bough 
The last Spring petals fall ; 
And red, red, red, 
Along the garden bed. 
The happy plants are holding now 
Their crimson carnival. 

Clear, sweet, and strong, 
I hear the robin's song. 
And catch the merry caroling 
Of some bold bobolink ; 
And phlox flowers throng 
The garden ways along. 
While peonies and roses bring 
Their pagentries of pink. 



White, gold, and green, 
The lily spires are seen, 
And hollyhocks, in stately rows. 
With tufted buds are set ; 
Tall, in between. 
The growing sunflowers lean, 
And thick the sweet-alyssum shows 
Among the mignonette. 

Ho ! truant May ! 
Have you, then, gone astray 
Unwitting that in realms of June 
Return were no avail ? 
Ah, well-a-day ! 
So wings the Spring away. 
The Summer's ever oversoon. 
But June, sweet June, all hail ! 



MYLA PETITE. 

BY EMILY THORNTON CHARLES. 

Ah ! how can I write of you, Myla Petite? 

So bonny and sweet ; 
From the curl on your brow to your twinkling feet. 
You are dainty and pretty, my love, my sweet ; 
Like the azurey skies 
Is the light of your eyes, 
Where the unspoken thought still heavenward flies 
Like a bright winged bird, like yourself, my sweet. 

And how can I sing of you, Myla Petite? 

So bonny and sweet ; 
Whose lightest footfall I hasten to greet 
And welcome the sound of your coming, my sweet. 
Rhythmic lore, roundelays. 
Cannot measure your praise, 
Nor harmony compass your wee, winning ways, 
No melody thrills like your voice, my sweet. 



poets' corner. 237 

Oh, what shall I say to you, Myla Petite:" 

So bonny and sweet ; 
How speak of the nameless charms so complete 
That surrounds and envelopes you, darling, my sweet. 
As the sun glints your hair. 
It would make you more fair, 
Were it not that you now are beyond all compare. 
Oh, precious, my jewel, my pearl, my sweet, 

I long for your presence, dear Myla Petite, 

So bonny and sweet ; 
My longing doth send me to fall at your feet. 
You must know I love you, you know it, my sweet, 
Oh, my darling confess 
That you love me, say yes ; 
And seal the sweet promise with fondest caress. 
Your love is my Eden, my life, my sweet. 



THE DOVES. 

BY JAMES NEWTON MATTHEWS. 

There's something in the far off coo 

Of twilight-nesting doves, that thrills 
My listening spirit thro' and thro'. 

Out here among the lonesome hills ; — 
What is it ? Something half divine, 

A patient, pleading undertone 
Of pathos, I can ne'er define. 

Of passion, kindred to my own. 

A sound subduing and subdued, 

A sinking strain that swoons and dies 
Amidst the melancholy wood, 

What time the tristful cricket cries: — 
No piping skylarks, sphered with blue. 

Nor linnets down the lanes of musk. 
Can bead my dreaming eyes with dew, 

Like those low-crooning doves of dusk. 



238 WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS. 

When, at God's bidding, every bird 

Flew thither, eager to receive 
Its own sweet song, all Eden stirred 

To welcome them, that summer eve ; 
And all were jubilant and gay. 

Save one, who never shared their mirth. 
The turtle-dove, who turned away. 

And learned the saddest song on earth. 

And this alone is why I love 

Its plaintive, pleading voice the best, — • 
Earth's anguish grieves the tender dove. 

And breaks to music in its breast ; — 
When fields grow dusk and waters dim, 

How sweet to wander forth alone, 
And hear, far down the woods dark rim, 

The drowsy doves of twilight moan. 



INDEX 



INDEX. 



PAGES. 

Abroniet, Anna, IiifliavapoHs, Tnd l(j 

Aldrich, Julia C, Wnnseon, Ohio _ 13, 17, 18, 19, 92, 226 

Andrews, M. L. ,CoHnersvilIe,Ind. . H), 11, 12, 13, 16, IS, 19,44,75,77,91.117, 134, 142, 144,223,233 

Bacon, Albion M. Fellows, EvansviUe, Ivd 91 

Bailey, Rose Paty, htdianapoliK, Ind 13, 19 

Banta, D. D., Franklin, Ind 92 

Bass, George, Indiminpoli.'^, Ind Kj 

Bates, Margret Holmes, Indianapidis, Ind 13, 15, 18,92, '21b 

Beck, Mrs. Metcalf, Warmw, Lid 25, 77 

Beyer Bros., Wnrmu; Ind 153 

Biddle, Horace P., LogavKport, Ind 122 

Bifjgs, Hiram, Warmw, Ind 25. 30, 77, 141, 143, 144 

Biggs, Mrs. Ilirara, Warsaw, Ind 25, 30 

Bolton, Sarah K., Ckveland, Ohiit 161 

Bolton, Sarah T., Indianapoli!^. Ind 19, 75, 124, 187, 217 

Bourinot, John George, Ottawa, Canada ..144, 145, 1.53 

Brewington, R. T., Knightdown. Ind 16 

Briggs, Mrs. J. C, Sullivan, Ind 30 

Brooks, Josephine, Madinon, Ind 30 

Brooks, Maria Sears, Madison, Ind .m, 71, 92, 154, 166, 229 

Brotherton, Alice Williams, Cincinnati, Ohio 91, 125 

Huskirk, Clarence A., Princeton, Ind 13, 16, 92, 124, 231, 2;^5 

Butterfield, Dr. S.>., Indianapolis, Ind 92 

Cardwill, George B., ^ew Albany, Ind 30, 44, 70, 91, 02, 153, 1,54, 164 

Cardwill, Mary E., New Albany. Ind 9, 15, 16, 18, 19, 25, 29, 44, 73, 91, 104, l.^>4, 170, 189 

Catherwood, Mary Hartwell, HoopeHon, III ...;J0, 75, 77, HI, 144, 154, 166 

Charles, Emily Thornton, Washington, D. C. 92, 164, 236 

Charles, Myla 164, 208 

Cha pi in, E. M. , Warxaw. Ind .'50, 1 14 

Chitwood, Mary Louisa ." 71, 12.i, 209 

Clodfelter. J. N., Craicfordsville, Ind .30, 88 

Cosgrove, Miss Lizzie, Warsaw, Ind 30 

Coulter, J. M., Crawfordsvillc, Ind 18 

Cumback, Will, Grefnsbnrg. Ind 13, 15, 17, 19, 91 

Cunningham, W. S., /nd(annpo?(.s, Tnd. 92 

Daggett, Will, IndiaiuipoUs, Ind 16 

Davis, Clarence Ladd, New York 13, 15 

Davis, Hannah E., Hpicdand, Ind 30, 134 

Davis, Ida May, Terre Ilanle, Ind 92 

Dawson, Richard Lew. Indianapolis, Ind 10, 11, 12, 10. 18, 19,91, 220 



242 INDEX. 

PAGES. 

Denton, Franklin E., Clevelavd, Ohio 27, 30, 71 

Denton, Mrs. Franklin E., Cleveland, Ohio __. .._ 30 

Downs, Charles P., Warsaw, Ind 77, 166 

Dufour, (Mrs.) A. L. R., Washington, D. C ffl, 122 

Dunn, .T. P., Jr., Indianapolis, Ind.- 30, AA, U, 77, 114. 142, 143, 154 

Dunn, Moses F., Be/lford, Ind 92 

Durham, Mary, Washington, I). C ., 92 

Foulke, W. D., Richmond, Ind 15, 16, 18, 19. 77, 154, 234 

Frazer, Wm. D. , Warsa^v, Ind 25 

Frazer, Mrs. W'm. D., Warsaw, Ind 25 

French, Alice, Davenport, Iowa ■ 91 

Funk, Mrs. Merlin, Warsaw, Ind 77, 144, 166 

Gallagher, W. D., Lmiisville, Ky 73, 74, 120, 197 

Garsline, Mrs. M. B., Fort Wayne, Ind 30 

Gordon, .louathan, W 13, 16, 17, 124, 203 

Gordon, Julia L., C/u'cagro, III 17 

Hall, J. 1., Wiivsav, Ind 25, 30 

Harding, S. S., Milan, Ind 17, 18. 19, 124, 191 

Harper, Ida A., Terre Havte, Ind _. 13, 16 

Harris, Lee O. , Greenfield, Ind ! 92 

Harte, Bret. 158, 159, 160 

Harryman, A. W., Chicago, III 13, 18 

Hawley, Irene Boynton, Coltinihns. Ind. 185 

Hayne, Will H., Augusta, Georgia 16 

Hetrick, Frank, Warsaw, Ind .77, 166 

Hctrick, Mrs. Frank, Warsaw, Ind 77, 166 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Beverly Farms, Mass 51, 73, 153 

Hooper, W. De, Indianapolis. Ind '. 16 

Hossler, Mrs. Q. A., Warmw, Ind 25 

Hough, Clarence E., Greenfield, Ind 28, 30, 44,75. 104, 166 

Hough, Wm. Alfred, Greenfield, Ind .30. 101. 125, 166 

House, Ben. D ...13, 193 

Howard, Mrs. F. M., Carroll, loua ._ 92 

Howe, Henry 75 

Hussey, Mary B., Brazil, Ind 18 

Hyman, B. K., Indianapolis, Ind 11 

Hyman, M. R., Indianapolis Ind 11 

Ireland, Emma, Warsatv, Ind . 25 

.lohnson, Annie J. Fellows, Evavsville, Ind 91 

Jordan, Mrs. D. M., Richmond, Ind .16, 17, 18, 19, 27, 30, 4), 71, 75. 77, 88. 124, 226 

Judsen, Jennie, Paris, III. 13 

Julian, Isaac H., San Marcos, Texas 122 

Kinley. Isaac, Los Angeles, Cat 194 

Kinney, Coates, Xenia, Ohio "... 123 

Koons, Mrs. J. V. H., Muncie, Ind 19, 30, 43, 162, 166, 220 

Leavitt, Mary A., Vernon, Ind 16, 17, 18, 36, 114 

Lee, John, Craivfurdsritle, Ind 30, 162 

Lieuellen, Ce Dora, Danville, Ind 92 

Liltell, Rachel, Cincinnati, Okw 92 



INDEX. 243 

PA(iES. 

Martin, Lucia Julian, Indianapolis, Iml Ki 

Matthews, fi. C, Memphin, Tenn 15 

Matthews. .T. X., ^fason, 111 1(1. 11. i;{. 17. IH. li), 01, 2.37 

Mc.Vvoy, T. ,T. , IiiUi'inapnli.i, Ind Ul 

McCrea, Mrs. S. K., Wabnsh, Ind ! .{0 

McCulloch, Oscar, hiiiann polls, Ind l,s 

McNutt, r. F., Terre. Haute, Ltd I.f, 16, 17, IS, 10, .'50, AA. 75, 77, 78, ,S<), 91. IH, 1-11, 151 

Miller, .loaqiiin, OaJdaiid. Cal US, 121. KiO 

Miller, Reiia L., In Giamje, Ind 92 

Moore. Nellie, Defiance, Ohio il2 

Moran, Mrs. M. E.. Warsaw Ind 77. 1(16 

Nave, Ella M 30, Ai, 154, 162, 213, 21,8 

Xeedham, \V. P., \Vini-ln\<tcr, Ind 18, Ki, 30, 44, 211 

N'eely, Mary E., Waxlilugton, V C 123 

Nelson , .1 ul ia B. . lied Wing. Minn 19 

New, Mrs. John C, Indianapolis, Ind 19 

Nichols, Rebecca T., Indianapolis, Ind 19, 121 

Ochiltree, J. C, Danville, Ind 10, 13, 16, 17, 18 

OMalley, Charles J., Hitesville. Ky 91.141 

Paden, Mamie S., Denver, Colo lii, 91, 221 

Paine, Dan. L., IndianapoU.i, Ind 13, 74, 75, 188 

Parker, Benjamin S., JS'tv Castle, Lid 

13, 15, 17. 18, 19, 25, 28, 29. 43, 71, 74. 77. SO, 114. 143, 153, 1.54, 156, 200. 222 

Parker, M rs. Benjamin S. , New Castle, Ind 30 

Parker, Joe A. , Winchester, Tenn 30 

Pfrimmer, W. W., Kentland, Ind 16. 18. 27, 30, 16. 62. 77. ^S, 117, 1.31, 166, 228 

Phifer, C. L., California, Mo 92 

Pierson, Clarence, aiaduin, Mick Ui 

Pretlovv, K. E., Dublin, Ind IS 

Pruuk. Iliittie A., Indianapolis, Ind 16, 19, 92 

Kansl'ord, Nettie, /rtrfia7w/J0/a, Ind 30 

Rave, Herman, Jefftrsonville, Ind 16, 163 

Redding, T. B., New Castle. Lid 30, 71. 142 

Kidpath. John Clark, Greenca.itk. Ind 15, 19, 30, 43, 44, 71, 75, 77, 89, 91, 111 

Riley. James Whitcomb, Indianapolis, Ltd 

13, 18, 19, 26, 30. 31, 43, 44. 73, 88, 1 18, 153, 134, 1.57, 162. 230 

Royce, L. W. . Warsaw, Ind 25 

Royce. Mrs. L. \V., Warsaw, Ind : 25 

Smith, Hubbard .M.. Vlmennes, Ind 16 

Spades. M. H., In<liana polls. Ind 10 

Spangler, Walter, Indianapolis, Ind 16 

Stackhouse, Eleanor, Chicago, 111 16, 18,30, 114, 166 

Stein, Evaleen. Ixifayelte, Ind 16, 18, 92, 236 

Swafford, Mrs. M., Terre Haute, Ind 232 

Swau, Rachel, Indianapolis. Ind .30, 75 

Taylor, Grace, Sullivan, Ind .30 

Taylor, H. W., Sullivan, Ind., 10, 16, is, 19, 30, 43, 44, 75,77. 88, 01, 114, 120. 142, 144, 1.53, 154. 162 

Taylor, Minnettii, Greencastle. Ind 223 

Teal, Angeline, Kendallville, Ind ;i0, 77 



244 INDEX. 

PAGES. 

Thompson, Mrs. E. S. L., M«ncie, /nd 13,15,18,10,30,102,114,154,217 

Thompson, Maurice, Qrawfordsville, Ind 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 124 

Toph, 011a Perkins, Indianapolis, Ind 92 

Van Deren, Theophiliis, Charleston, III 92 

Venable, W. H. , Cincinnati, Ohio 15, 75, 224 

Wallace, W. De Witt, Zre/oj/e«e, Ind 15, 18, 92, 234 

Webber, I. B. , Warsaw, Ind 25 

Wheeler, L. May, Chicago, III 

13, 14, 18, 19. 23, 25, 29, 40, 4J, 71, '.)1, 144, 154, 162, 164, 165, 166, 170, 214. 230 

Widamau, Mrs. John A.. Warsaw, Ind 25. 77 

Williams, Reuben, Warsaw, Ind 25' 

Williams. Mrs. Reuben, Worsair, Ind 25 




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